


Five Squared

by parallelmonsoon



Series: Classification Verse [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Anxiety Disorder, Asexual Character, Autistic Logic | Logan Sanders, Child Neglect, Chronic Pain, Classification AU, Disabled Character, Dominance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Executive Dysfunction Roman, Fire, Gotta Whump Them All, Human Sides (Sanders Sides), Hurt Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Hurt Deceit Sanders, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Non-Sexual Age Play, Other, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm, Submission, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Touch-Starved, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:13:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelmonsoon/pseuds/parallelmonsoon
Summary: Five men.  Five different classifications.  Virgil is a Little without a Caregiver.  Patton is a Caregiver who gives up everything to make others happy.  Roman is a Dom who isn't dominant enough.  Logan is a rare, proud Neutral who is tired of rejection.  And Deceit...well, no one knows what the hell Deceit is.Five men.  One fandom convention.  One chance to find each other and maybe, just maybe, find what they've been missing.Fate will be working overtime this week.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Human AU based on a world where people are sorted into various 'classifications' determined by their reaction to stress and their primary instinctive drive. In a stressful situation Caregivers will attempt to protect and care for others. Doms will attempt to take control over the situation. Subs will give up control and follow others. Neutrals are unpredictable and seem to lack a single overwhelming drive. Littles are prone to involuntary age regression. 
> 
> All classifications have legal rights and protections, but have different social expectations and carry their own stereotypes. A person may also have a secondary classification (such as Caregiver primary/Dom secondary.) Some classes are more common then others. People receive their classification in high school after a period of testing and observation. Your class is considered to be rigid and unchanging, and acting in a manner outside your class can bring negative attention. 
> 
> (I have a whole host of notes for this AU that I might post later, should anyone be interested)
> 
> (Will have a combination of different types of relationships ranging from platonic to sexual and various combinations of characters in those relationships. There is no sex involved during regression.)

...careful....

...careful...

Virgil's tongue poked against his cheek. Eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, all of his focus on his hand's slow descent. One more block added to the stack and that would be four. One two three four...four blocks high!

The highest ever!

The blue block settled gently into place. Virgil grinned and bounced on his bottom, only just biting back a happy squeal. He stuffed his hand in his mouth, sucking on his fingers while he admired his masterpiece.

Four blocks. Green and yellow and red and blue.

  
But maybe...

There was still one block left. The **best** block. Virgil picked it up with his free hand, looking between it and his tower. Four, four was good. But maybe...

Maybe it could be five?

...careful...

Crash!

His hand bumped blue, bringing the stack tumbling down. Virgil flinched away, letting the last block (purple!) fall from his hand. He curled in on himself. Made himself small, hands over his ears and knees tucked in tight.

A mess. He'd...he'd made a mess.

He waited.

Waited for the yelling.

_Useless. Stupid. **Bad**. _

He waited...

Slowly Virgil found the courage to lift his head. He looked around...

Alone.

He was alone. Just Virgil, and he didn't know this room, all gray and strange. Gray carpet, gray curtains, and a big gray bed. Nothing else except his blocks, scattered and sad. The green and the red and the blue and yellow and the purple. Busy being not-friends, and it was all Virgil's fault.

Virgil picked up purple first. Purple was best. He had a big dent in one corner and his paint was duller then it used to be, but he was tough and strong and looked out for the rest.

Virgil bit his lip.

He threw purple! Threw him big, and now the wall had a scratch too, long and ugly. Then he threw the rest, one after another. One two three four five, and now, now...

Still no yelling.

Still just Virgil.

Virgil whined. He was wet and he was cold and he didn't know this place, this gray, gray room.

He was scared!

And that was dumb. He was being a dummy. Big boys don't get scared, not even when they're little. It was silly to be scared, and being silly was the **worst**.

He was crying. Like a baby, a stupid big dummy baby, and still...

...still no one came.

Virgil sobbed. Until he was sick with it, hiccuping up bile and snot in sticky strings. He lurched up, fell hard, and crawled the rest of the way to the wall where the blocks lay strewn.

“Sorry.” He pulled purple into his lap, curling around the old wooden block and patting its scarred surface. “M' sorry. Sorry sorry sorry...”

He heard it then. Just soft, a little hum.

It got louder slowly. Not a hum but a buzz, shrill and piercing, and Virgil tucked his head down and tried to hide, because he **knew** that sound.

It made his head and tummy hurt. He didn't want to listen. Didn't want to let it in, but it just kept getting louder and it **hurt** , it hurt and he was so, so scared...

 **Fuck**.

Virgil made it to his feet on his third try and staggered over to the bed. He fumbled for his phone, dismissing the alarm with a swipe of his thumb.

Too bright. Way too bright. The migraine was already setting in, the lights overhead haloed by a pulsing aura. He grabbed his sunglasses next, sighing in relief at the welcome gloom, and took stock.

 **Gross**.

His top was a ruin, slick with mucus and vomit and fuck knew what else. His diaper was soaked through. It sagged between his legs and chaffed at his thighs, sparking a bright, itchy pain that made him grimace.

Ugh. He could **smell** himself.

Shower first. Virgil snagged a sippy cup off the floor on his way to the bathroom, popping the top and chugging the dregs. The juice was sickly sweet and had long since gone warm, but the taste lingering in his mouth was worse and the sugar helped chase away the lingering fog.

He bagged up the stained clothes to deal with it later and set the water as hot as he could get it.

Let the spray beat against his shoulders for a decadent ten minutes thankful the hotel had decent water pressure at least. When he finally felt clean he stepped out into the warm, steamy air and dried off, paying special attention to his groin.

The diaper rash never really healed anymore. Red raw, the worst of it blistered and oozing. Virgil smeared on the medicated ointment, fragrant and thick, and padded naked back out to the bedroom.

Time to clean up.

He was pleased to find the rubber-backed playmat had done an admirable job in protecting the drab carpet from piss and puke. It only took a few minutes to clear away the rest. The sippy cup, a bowl of dried-out carrot sticks, and five brightly colored blocks.

Strange, though, how the blocks lay on the far side of the room from the mat. Virgil's memories of the past few hours were hazy, like always. He remembered tears and fear and loneliness. The usual. Remembered...

Shit. Virgil scurried over and scooped up the purple block. He turned it over, studying it minutely, fingers lingering over every scuff and splinter. Nothing new.

The tension in his shoulders eased. Virgil rolled his eyes, disgusted by his own concern, and gathered up the rest. He tossed the lot into the bottom of his suitcase and turned his attention to the wall. 

Welp. That was coming out of his security deposit for sure. 

The room was Little safe, just like he'd requested, but that meant child locks on the cabinets and mini-fridge. Not a free pass to be a brat and fling things around. 

But then, even a Little safe room wasn't meant for an unattended Little. 

All in all, things could have gone much, much worse.

It was early yet, only just past ten, but Virgil crawled under the stiff, heavy quilt with a groan. He thought vaguely of unwashed sheets, of bedbugs and lice, but for once he didn't have the energy to be anxious. 

One day down. Three more to go. 

He still didn't know how he'd let Giles talk him into this. The man had been riding his ass for  **years** about headlining a convention. 

  
Hell, Virgil still couldn't believe conventions for Sander Sides were, like, a  **thing** . He kept waiting to wake up, to learn the past ten whirlwind years had been a dream and he was still in high school, scribbling down character notes in the margin of his math homework. 

Three books now, with a fourth in editing and due out by end of the year. A spin-off comic series.  **A fucking movie.**

A dream...or a flipping nightmare? 

One day down, and it had taken all of Virgil's courage not to walk out a dozen times over. So. Many. People. All of them staring, all of them there to see  **him** . Only a lifetime of practice had kept him from regressing right there on stage. 

“Three more to go,” Virgil said to the room, “You've got this.” 

Fucking right. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Thanks so much! Enjoy your day.”

Patton passed the driver his tip and stepped away from the cab. He turned...

Oh. Oh **wow**.

An hour after opening, and the line outside was still long enough to wrap around the far side of the convention hall.

For a moment he stood watching. Gawking, really, gape jawed and starry eyed. He couldn't help it!

Just a queue, a place to hurry up and wait. People shambled forward a step at a time, bleary eyed and hunched over their coffees like dragons guarding treasure. Early, yes, and bitterly cold, but Patton could feel the crowd's low, excited murmur resonating up from the gum-studded concrete under his feet.

Patton bounced. Thirty seconds in, and he was already helplessly, hopelessly in love with it all.

So many people! And Patton...Patton was one of them. He was here, here at long last, and it still didn't feel quite real.

Even last night part of him had been waiting. Waiting for the phone call. An emergency at the hospital, a bus crash maybe, all hands on deck. On the drive to the airport he'd expected a text from the shelter. A litter of orphaned feral kittens, or a hit-by-car dog in urgent need of transport to the nearest vet. Right up until the plane left the ground Patton had been so sure **something** would happen.

But now, now he was **here**. Feet on the ground, three states from home, too far away to be summoned back.

Patton scanned the plaza, looking for the blue vests of the TS volunteer squad. Most were busy shepherding the crowd, but he found one who looked unoccupied and hurried over.

“Good morning, friend!” Terrence, Dom, he/him...what a nifty idea! Patton would have to make a name tag just like it for himself. “I'm afraid I'm a bit confuddled. I've got this presenter's pass?”

Terrence was tall, with warm brown eyes and a perfectly adorable smile. He took Patton's badge and looked it over, front and back, then did a classic double-take at the name.

“Love your work!” he said, and didn't that make Patton squirm! “You can go straight on through the main entrance. They'll direct you from there.”

It felt strange and not-so-good, bypassing all those patient peeps in line. Patton kept his head down and hurried along, then did his own double take when a flash of crimson caught his eye.

Creativity, complete with sash and sword. Oh, and a Logic and an Anxiety and a Morality too! The foursome had clearly gone all in. Movie accurate costumes with a clever, steampunk twist, and Patton didn't even try to bite back his squeal.

Awesome-sauce, but also... **brrr**!

Logic especially looked like he was suffering. The short sleeves made sense for a spell caster in the ever-shifting realm of the Imagination, but here in reality they didn't offer much protection against the biting wind of a Boston winter. Patton shrugged his bag off his shoulder and pawed through it, muttering in frustration at the clutter.

Teething rings, fidget toys, crayons. A professional grade first-aid kit. A spare stethoscope. Every last just-in-case thingamabob Patton could think to pack, all of it crammed into a diaper bag in the most searing shade of fuchsia pink he could find. Getting through airport security had been an experience, but Patton couldn't imagine leaving home without it.

Aha! There, way down at the bottom, and wasn't that always the way?

“Love, love, love the costumes!” Anxiety even had a little clockwork spider on his shoulder....terrifying, but oh so cute! “But you look like you're about to turn into a Logic-cicle. Handwarmer?”

The cosplayers blinked at Patton. Patton blinked back. His smile faded.

“Sorry! Oh, gosh, I...geez, that was rude. I just...”

Patton took a long step back. Personal space! How many times did he need to be told?

“It's just...you looked cold,” he tried to explain, “And I brought a bunch, so...”

The man dressed as Creativity chuckled. “Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I am freezing my royal crown off. I'll take one if he won't.”

Patton passed around the little chemical packs, giving each a twist and a scrunch to activate it. The couple in line behind the costumed foursome were looking a little envious and, well, Patton could always buy more.

He gave priority to kids and anyone actively shivering. Soon enough his supply was exhausted, and Patton felt his gut twist when someone groaned in disappointment.

“Sorry!” he said to the crowd at large.

He was still apologizing when Terrence came hurrying over. “Hey, man...you should probably head in. They'll need time to set up...”

Oh, snickerdoodles! Patton settled his bag back on his shoulder, staggering only slightly (heavy!), and headed for the entrance. The nice girl he'd been in contact with over the past few months had been clear about schedule. Trust ditsy old Patton to throw everything off without even trying!

Terrence kept pace with him, dodging around stray con-goers with practiced ease. “Heading in now,” he said into his headset, “I'll bring him straight up to staging. Can...whoops!”

He skidded to a stop when Patton did, twisting to look back over his shoulder. “Problem?”

Patton could only gesture. A wide sweep of his arm, encompassing the entirely of the con hall spread out before him.

The banner, the vendors, the **people**. The crowd outside was nothing compared to the horde within.

It felt like...

Like stepping into a foreign land. Exciting, but also a little scary.

Like coming home for Christmas after being away at college. Familiar, comforting, safe.

These were **his** people.

Terrence laughed outright. “First time at a con?”

First time at a con. First time taking a week away from work. First time flying. First time traveling on his own.

A whole lot of firsts, and Patton was so glad he'd let his friends and family talk him into it!

“Guess you like diving into the deep end,” Terrence said as they started walking again, “You gonna be okay for the panel?”

Good question!

Sure, Patton had known TS East was big. The biggest, in fact, with some 20,000 guests in attendance last year. Between the movie release in May and an appearance by the reclusive author, this year was expected to crush that.

And Patton wasn't just attending. He was on a panel, and not some little panel in some out-of-the-way corner room either. He was headlining, right alongside the biggest names in the fandom and V. E. March himself.

“Wait, wait a sec...I think....”

“Too late!” Terrence got his arm around Patton, guiding him onto the escalator and crowding in close to keep him from bolting. “Just picture the crowd in their undies and you'll be fine.”

Deep end? Patton already felt like he was drowning.

Then he made the mistake of looking down. Being this high up made it easier to see the full scope of the teeming masses below. Patton snapped his head around to stare ahead again.

Terrence led him along a confusing path. Patton was definitely going to need a map if he wanted to survive the rest of the con. He was well and truly lost by the time they came to a small crowd of volunteers crowded outside an unassuming door.

“Here's the payload safe and sound,” Terrence announced, “Be gentle, he's a first-timer.”

“Great, he'll fit right in.” A volunteer with rainbow hued hair (Talyn, Submissive, they/them) passed Patton a water bottle. He gulped it down, caught off guard by his own jittery thirst. “Deceit is a no show so far, but he's the only one I'm not worried about. Cantero is having a meltdown over his make-up. The deep dive guy looks like he's either about to cry or burn the place down. And March...we can't get him out of the bathroom. He's been puking his guts up for the past hour.”

Patton passed the drained bottle back and gripped the strap of his bag, feeling its reassuring weight.

“Show me,” he said.

 


	3. Chapter 3

No.

Unacceptable. Completely and utterly unacceptable.

Roman deserved better. He **demanded** better.

He stood with force enough to send his chair skittering back. Threw down his brush. It bounced, leaving mascara smeared across the faux wood grain of the conference table.

“This is ridiculous!” he told the room at large, “You can't craft a masterpiece in the dark!”

An exaggeration, he knew, but only just. The lights overhead were flickering florescent. Under their light he looked washed out and jaundiced, a sickly thing. And the mirror! Surely it was warped, the only possible explanation for his bloated cheeks and bulbous nose.

The two volunteers by the door exchanged a glance. One sighed; the other rolled her eyes. Roman gasped.

 Betrayal!

He whirled on his heel. “Help me out, Doctor Whosit. They couldn't even get the fruit right!” A blotchy banana and one lonely apple, rattling around in an over-sized bowl. Just looking at the paltry offering made Roman curl his lip. “I specifically asked for peaches!”

Roman's fellow guest didn't have the common decency to glance his way. He just went on pacing. He'd been pacing for an hour now, three sharp strides to either side, and the click click click of his heels against the tiles made Roman want to **scream**.

Roman stepped around the table and planted himself in the other man's path. Whatshisname drew up short, and for a nerd he had an impressive glare.

Well, at least Roman had his attention.

“Yo, Jeremy...could you maybe try being just a little more chill?”

“It's Logan, as you well know.” His voice was as prissy as his suit, and no wonder. That tie looked tight enough to strangle. “And I hardly think you have room to speak on the subject.” 

He was taller then Roman by at least a head (rude!) but built lanky and lean, a stereotypical string-bean geek. Roman huffed and stepped closer, crossing his arms over his chest in a way he knew displayed his biceps to their best effect.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“ **I** am not the one throwing a tantrum.” Logan gestured to the pair across the room, who were busy blatantly ignoring them both. “Your juvenile antics have already driven away the rest of the staff.”

Roman bit his lip at that, glancing around the room like he might spot the missing volunteers clustered under the table.

Fair point.

“Yeah, well...” Come on, Roman. “At least I've been spending my time productively. In fact...”

He made a show of looking the other man up and down. Pasty, but the bone structure was good, with fine, high cheekbones and a sharply angled chin. 

Roman could work with that.

“You could use a little foundation yourself, Dorkwad Gearhands. Sit down.”

He gestured back to the chair stationed in front of the mirror. Logan shook his head, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and abject horror.

“Excuse me?”

“I most certainly will not,” Roman said. He took another step closer. Logan didn't step back, but he did lean away, just a little.

Just enough.

Another step, and Roman's smirk was becoming a grin, the tension in his shoulders starting to ease. Foundation, yes, and maybe a hint of blush. Nothing dramatic...it wouldn't suit, and anyway, he didn't need the competition.

Closer yet, and Logan was starting to shift his weight back onto his heels. One more step...

“Nuh uh, mister!” Roman stumbled back when a hand planted itself in the middle of his chest and **pushed**. “None of that, thank you very much.”

Roman stared down at the newcomer. Ginger curls, chubby cheeks, freckles. Not intimidating in the least, but oh, he was giving it the old college try. Hands on his hips, chest out, and just who did this little puffball think he was, anyway? 

He looked over the stranger's head to Logan, raising both brows in mute appeal. Logan shrugged, looking just as clueless as Roman felt.

No help from that direction, then.

“I was just...”

“Just being a bully.” Those big brown eyes weren't even angry. Just disappointed., and that was worse.

Why the hell was that worse?

“I...” Roman squirmed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Sorry Logan.”

The apology was mumbled, half sincere at best, but that quickly all was forgiven. Curly dropped his wanna-be dom stance, grinning up Roman with the aggressive enthusiasm of a puppy anticipating walkies.

“That's okay, then,” he said, “Everybody gets nervous! Would it help if you did my make-up instead?”

Another guest, then. No costume, so he wasn't the cosplayer, and as far as Roman knew March was still barricaded in the bathroom down the hall. That left the fanfic guy. Patter? Patrick? Pat- **something**.

“I...sure, if you don't mind.” Roman always did feel better when he had something to do with his hands. He studied the canvas in front of him, embarrassment fading as he considered the possibilities. He'd have to take it easy with the concealer...those freckles were just too adorable to hide. “I can promise you'll look nearly as fabulous as my own fair self!”

Pat-what (Damn Roman's shit excuse for a memory!) giggled. “I'll hold you to it.”

He turned to Logan then. “As for you...”

That eyesore of a bag hit the floor with a thump. Logan and Roman stood awkwardly while the other man knelt down to paw through it, emerging finally with a little sound of triumph.

“Here we go!”

Logan fumbled to catch the underhand toss, then blinked down at his prize. It looked something like a deformed Rubik's cube, only with far too many sides and far too many squares.

Logan's brow furrowed. He looked thoroughly mystified. “I...how...”

“Your videos...you've got that nifty collection on your bookcase.” The little guy's smile faded when Logan went on staring. He shuffled his feet, that strange cheerful confidence giving way to something shy, almost frail. “Was that...is it weird?”

It was, a little, but Roman was still relieved when Logan hastened to reassure the other man. “No, no...I appreciate the gift. I am sure it will help lower my stress levels in the time remaining before the panel.”

He started fiddling with the thing as if to prove it. Pat-the-softie clapped his hands in relief, then smiled back over his shoulder at Roman.

“Give me a few minutes, 'kay? I'll be back in a jiff and then we can get started.”

He picked up his bag, waved to them both, and walked out of the room.

In the hush that followed Roman could hear the muffled squeaks of the volunteers trying to choke back their laughter. He scowled and pushed a hand through his hair, regretting it only seconds later.

“What just happened?” he asked.

“I'm not sure I can hazard a guess.” Logan spoke without turning his attention from the puzzle box. Spinning, shifting, and already a pattern was coming clear. “I admit to some minor disorientation myself.”

Roman plopped back down in front of the mirror and reached for his comb. “For the record...” he said without turning round, “I **am** sorry. The offer still stands, but trying to force you wasn't cool.”

The other man looked up. Their eyes met in the reflection. Logan's lips twitched, more a smirk then a smile.

“Yes, well, I suppose it can be forgiven.” The smirk widened and grew teeth. “You were unsettled, and it's in the nature of a Dominant to seek control at such times. Though typically such instincts would not be soothed by something so trivial as forcing another to submit to facepaint.”

Roman sputtered.

“Well, yeah...but you don't have to **say** it!” A pause. “Blunderdolt.”

“Blustering bloviate,” Logan shot back.

Roman grinned. It was good to have a friend.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

A cat.

Vilem could see it so clearly. The laid-back ears, the thrashing tail. Little hands balled into fists like paws.

Not even a cat. A kitten.

“Oh my god.” One of those little fists lashed out, delivering a solid thump to his collarbone. “Stop smirking. You are the absolute **worst**.”

“And you adore me for it.”

Talyn's eyeroll was a thing of beauty. They threw their whole body behind it, rainbow hair flopping with the sheer force of their sass.

“The **worst** ,” they repeated, “And you're late. Again.” 

Vilem laid a hand against his chest. _Who, me?_

“My alarm malfunctioned. My driver got lost. We blew a tire. I stopped to help a stray puppy. My hotel lost my check-in. I dropped my wallet.”

“...is that all one excuse or do I get to pick?” Talyn asked.

Vilem grinned and neatly sidestepped when they tried to thump him again.

“Let me guess...” They gave the matter some thought, tapping their fingers against their chin and staring up at the pockmarked ceiling. “You got sloshed in some back alley bar last night and overslept.”

Raised brows, wide eyes, his very best pout. Innocence, mingled with a hefty dose of outrage at the mere suggestion he would do something so uncouth.

Talyn stared him down. Narrow-eyed, until Vilem dropped the act and smiled snide.

“You know me too well, my dear.”

They really did. It was starting to become a problem.

Five years now, working side-by-side to help pull together together ten thousand moving parts into some semblance of a coherent convention. He would almost...almost...call them a friend.

It was enough to make him twitchy.

“I don't even know what you look like under the scales,” Talyn retorted, “Now shoo. Go get costumed up. You're the last...I just sent Rose in.” 

There was something in their smile that made Vilem suspicious. A certain gleam to their eye. Still he gave way easily when they gestured, unwilling to push his luck. For such a little thing they packed a punch.

The staging room/conference room was at the end at the hall. Vilem eased open the doors...

...and stopped mid-stride, taking in the scene with wide eyes.

Roman Cantero facing off against Logan Cohen. Heads high, chests out. Cantero with his arms crossed, Moretti looking spooked but with his hands fisted at his sides. No play fight, this.

And just pushing in-between them, Patton Rose. Dwarfed by the other two but fearless.

Vilem hesitated. Considered, and came to one inescapable conclusion.

Nope.

He backed out of the room. Turned, passing a laughing Talyn on his way back down the hall. Coffee. Coffee first, and hopefully whatever **that** was all about would be over with by the time he came back.

“The worst!” Talyn called after him. Vilem shot them the middle finger over his shoulder and kept walking.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why Vilem for Deceit? 
> 
> I don't usually do author's notes of this kind, but I kind of like the name and want to share? Vilem is an Czech form of William. It means protector or determined guardian. Most of the names I see for Deceit are based on, well, the deceitful side of his nature, so I wanted something referencing his deeper role. Also, in this 'verse he's a very guarded character- he's protective of himself above all else, so it plays into that as well. Also, Patton, Logan, and Roman all share a similar ending to their names. I liked the idea of the 'dark sides' sharing the same beginning instead.
> 
> Next up...in which Virgil is a stubborn cuss and Patton has no idea what he's getting himself into.


	5. Chapter 5

Patton rapped his knuckles against the door. Just softly. A question, not a demand.

“Go 'way.” The voice was low, worn down to a sandpaper whisper. “I'll be out, just...just gimme me...gimme ten more...”

The retching that followed was guttural and ugly. Terrence winced, then sighed and offered Patton a tight-lipped smile.

“Sorry, buddy. I told you this was a bad idea...”

Patton hesitated.

He knew what he was about to do was crossing a line.

Only...

(Always a reason. Always an excuse. And Patton knew, he **knew**....)

He set his hand flat against the door. A little push, and it gave way easily.

Practically an invitation.

“Just give me a chance,” he told Terrence, and stepped through before the other man could argue.

The bathroom was a narrow space. Cramped, but meticulously clean. Three urinals, two stalls. The door to the last in line stood open. A dark figure crouched there, tucked up close to the commode like a kitten with its mother.

“Mr. March?”

March cleared his throat with a mucus-thick rasp. He spat into the bowl, fumbled to flush, then let himself fall back.

He landed on his rump and yelped. High-pitched and shocked, like the impact, mild as it was, had **hurt**. Wavered, and started to tip back.

Patton could picture it so clearly. The crisp, meaty thud of a skull bouncing off the tasteful cream tiles. Blood, pooling bright and cheerful in the grout.

There was no grace to it, surely. Just a mad scramble that left Patton's shins bruised from the weight of his bag. But somehow he was **there** , just in time to catch March by the shoulders and force him back upright.

March froze. Locked up tight, every muscle, every tendon, quivering with the strain of it, a brittle tension that threatened to shatter the man.

He froze...

...and then he fought.

The bony point of an elbow drove deep into Patton's gut. It knocked the wind out of him, sent him tumbling back to land on his own bottom with a jolt that rattled his teeth.

March flailed. Pushing, kicking, slapping, battering himself against the walls of the stall. Whining low in his throat all the while, his lips pulled back in a rictus grin that exposed too many teeth. A fox in a trap, willing to gnaw off his leg if it meant freedom.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Patton pushed himself back with his heels, hands held high, an awkward crab crawl. He fetched up against the opposite wall, granting the other man what meager space he could. “Easy there!”

March got himself turned around. He was breathing hard, arms up and fists clenched, but this wasn't anger.

This...this was fear, and no one had ever looked at Patton with fear in their eyes before.

For a moment, stillness. It took Patton a moment to realize March was waiting. For whatever it was that came next, and Patton did his best to find a smile.

“Jumpin' Jiminy!” It came out as a squeak. Patton swallowed hard and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly between pursed lips. “Shucks, I sure am sorry.” Better. Soft and soothing, but clear. His night-shift voice, made for the lonely predawn hours, when the lights were dim and the hospital's halls were at their most foreign and frightening. “I didn't mean to sneak up on you there, kiddo.”

Because he realized now that he'd done just that. Lost in his own misery, March hadn't heard Patton enter the room. Hadn't heard him call out his name. Hadn't known he wasn't alone until Patton's hands landed on his shoulders.

No wonder he'd spooked!

“Terrence and Talyn were worried.” Manipulative, using those names, an appeal to familiarity and authority that Patton hadn't earned. Still, in for a crumb, in for a cookie and all that. “They asked me to peek in on you. I'm a nurse...can I show you my card?”

March dipped his chin, the barest approximation of a nod. Patton tugged his wallet from the front pocket of his bag, telegraphing every move with painstaking care. He slide his government ID free and slide it across the floor.

_Patton Rose_

_Certified Caregiver_

_License Type A_

_Certified for Sub-Drop and Involuntary Regression_

_No Restrictions_

March mouthed the words as he read, eyes flickering between the picture in the corner and Patton's face and back again.

Patton saw his chance and took it. Puffing out his cheeks, crossing his eyes, sticking out his tongue. He gave himself bunny ears for good measure, flexing his fingers in a jaunty wave.

March snorted.

And then he started to laugh.

It was ugly, too loud and sharp-edged, a rough, dry bark of a thing. Patton clapped his hands in delight and added his own high-pitched giggles, gone light headed with giddy relief.

It tapered off slowly to gritty chuckles. March shook his head and shifted out of the stall, slumping down against the end wall catty corner to Patton. He sat with his knees bent, elbows resting atop and hands dangling in between, long, skeletal fingers spasming with tiny tremors.

“What the hell, man.” March tossed Patton back his card with a flick of his wrist, snickering again when Patton fumbled his attempt to catch it. “Thought nurses were supposed to help with heart attacks, not cause 'em.”

He spoke with a hint of an accent, a drawl that slurred across the vowels. “You're right,” Patton said. A pause, then... “I really aorta know better.”

Confusion. Slow realization.

March groaned. Long and pained, and Patton wiggled with pride.

“I really **am** sorry,” Patton told him.

March waved him off. Dismissal or forgiveness, and something in the lazy gesture made Patton uneasy. “No harm done.”

  
He smirked, and again there was something...off about it. Something that made Patton's chest tighten, the razor throb of his instincts flaring hot.

“Now, no offense or anything, but shoo.”

Patton gaped. “But...I need to...”

“Nope.” March popped the 'p'. “Out.”

He didn't sound angry. Mostly like tired. It bowed his shoulders and shadowed his eyes, the kind of exhaustion that weighs one down to the very bones.

No, worse then that. He looked **sick**.

His face was gaunt. All angles, the hollows of his cheeks speaking of long term deprivation. He couldn't have been any older then Patton, but there were lines etched deep into his brow and around the corners of his eyes. Even at this distance Patton could see the pulse bounding under the thin throat of his throat.

He looked frail, and it was making Patton **ache**.

 (And Patton knew...)

(...knew he should leave, give March his privacy, mind his own business.  He **knew**...)

“Mr. March...”

The other man screwed his nose up in disgust. “Virgil.”

“It's a gosh darn pleasure to met you, Virgil. I'm Patton,” Patton said in answer, “Now, look. You've been vomiting...”

“Yeah, I do that.”

Patton huffed. He didn't know what to do with this blatant refusal to **care**.

Virgil echoed his sigh. “Look, I know you're just trying to do your bit and all. But this is, like, normal,” he said, tapping his temple to illustrate. “It's a thing. I just gotta get through this stupid panel...”

He clicked his tongue, abrupt and sharp, and pointed at Patton. “Wait....Patton Rose. Aren't you...”

It only made sense that he would recognize the name. Still, it was a thrill. Patton had managed to push it out of his mind, the heady realization that he was cracking puns at none other then V. E. March himself.

“Rosefanficcer, that's me.” He ducked his head, feeling his cheeks burning scarlet. Never one to fuss over appearance, Patton was suddenly all too aware of his frizzly curls, of his thick thighs and pudgy little belly. “It's a real gosh darn pleasure to meet you, Virgil.”

He wanted to say more. To tell the other man just what the Sander Sides meant to him.

Nursing school had been a struggle. Separated from his family from the first time, overwhelmed by his coursework and swamped by his instincts. Sick with the knowledge of all the ways people could be hurt, could suffer.

And then his dormmate had loaned him a dog-eared copy of The Mindscape. Morality, Logic, and the others...they weren't fairy heroes. They wavered, made bad choices and held grudges and forgot lessons learned. They weren't always brave. Sometimes they were weak, and sometimes, despite everything, those weaknesses were too much to overcome.

And still they fought on.

'Y _our books reminded me that failure doesn't mean everything end_ s,' he wanted to say.

“Do you need to cancel?” he asked instead.

Virgil snarled out a laugh. Patton huffed again and crossed his arms over his chest. “I'm serious.”

“Sure, sure.” Virgil rolled his eyes, then winced. He probably had a plum awful headache. “I'll just disappoint, like, **everyone**. Do you know how many tickets...”

Patton saw it. The instant those multitudes became real to Virgil, became **people**.

Patton barely avoided being kicked when Virgil launched himself back into the stall. He made it just in time, groaning while he brought up bile in great, cramping heaves.

Patton levered himself to his feet, wavering a little on stiff legs. He pulled his bag up onto the counter, twisting the tap at the sink to let the water run while he rummaged through for what he needed.

When Virgil was down to the occasional hiccup gasp Patton nudged his shoulder with a damp terrycloth. The other man accepted the offering, burying his face in the cool softness and breathing out long and shuddering.

“Done?” Patton asked.

Virgil gave the matter due consideration before nodding. “Here.” Patton took the cloth back in exchange for a sippy cup without the cap. “Rinse out your mouth.”

All the fight seemed to have left Virgil. His lips had gone bloodless, sharp contrast to the high, hectic flush at his cheeks. He let Patton cool his nape and forehead with another cloth, shivering as the sweat was wiped away.

Patton looked him over with a critical eye. “You just sit and relax. I'll be back in just a jiffy.”

He didn't make it a step before he was pulled up short. Patton looked down in surprise, heart twisting when he saw Virgil had snagged his trouser leg in a white-knuckled grip.

Ah, kiddo.

Virgil blushed brighter when he realized when he'd done. He let go with a mumbled little curse, tucking his hand up tight to his chest like a child scalded by a stove. “S-sorry. W-where...”

“I'll be back lickety split,” Patton promised him, “I just need to pop out and have a talk with Terrence.”

“ **No**.”

It would have had more force behind it if Virgil hadn't finished by retching up another mouthful of sick.

Okay. There was brave, and then there was just plain silly.

Patton crossed his arms over his chest and pulled back his shoulders. He caught Virgil's gaze and held it, then let his voice rumble up from his belly, low and deep, his best impression of a dom's natural born resonance.

“ **Enough**.”  


Virgil was a tall man, all long limbs and knobby joints, lanky as a teen on the cusp of a growth spurt. Still he did his best to make himself small, eyes dropping away from Patton's own and huddling low.

Patton thought he'd remembered reading in one of Virgil's rare interviews that he was a submissive, but still. He hadn't expected that to work nearly as well as it had. Most people just laughed outright when Patton puffed up and tried to take control.

He could have walked out then. Virgil would have let him, all that fierce determination and pride undone by hardwired instinct.

Patton hesitated. Not long.

Long enough.

Virgil shook it off with a snarl and a curse. “Listen...” He still couldn't quite look Patton in the eye, focusing vaguely over his left shoulder instead. “You really think bailing won't fuck my head up worse?”

Oh.

“I didn't...” Patton scrubbed at his face, thoroughly frustrated with himself. “I'm sorry.”

Because the man had a point. Whatever anxiety disorder Virgil was dealing with wasn't likely to play nice with the guilt of backing out, misplaced though it might be.

“I can do this.” The words had the heavy air of a talisman, held close and worn smooth through sheer repetition. “No biggie. I just need...”

“You need to breath,” Patton interrupted. Virgil startled, then nodded and blew out the breath he'd been holding. He spent a few minutes forcing slow inhales and exhales, narrow chest trembling with the effort. Patton helped by being still and quiet, until finally Virgil slumped, a little color coming back to his face.

“You know...” Patton slide back down to the floor, criss cross applesauce. “I'm scared too. Wanna be scaredy buddies?”

Virgil shook his head at Patton's enthusiasm. “You're kind of a goofball, aren't you,” he said, but there was no malice in it.

Patton beamed. “Yeah, yeah,” Virgil said. The corner of his lip lifted in a smirk, and there was something devilish about the twist of it. “You don't have to be so vein about it.

He snuck a sideways peek at Patton through his bangs. Wait. Was that...

It was! Patton squealed and bounced on his seat, utterly charmed.

But Virgil's smirk was fading to a frown, and the worry in his eyes brought the ache in Patton's chest back to savage, gibbering life.

“How long?” Virgil asked.

Patton glanced at his watch and fought not to blanch. “We've still got a few minutes.” A very few. “You know...you're right. We **can** do this. There's two of us, so each of us only has to be half as nervous. Easy peasy, lemon breezy.”

Virgil snorted. “I'm not sure that's how it works.”

“No, that's totally how it works,” Patton insisted, “I'm a nurse, I know these things.”

They sat together a little while longer, until Virgil nodded to himself and met Patton's eyes with sudden resolve.

“Okay. Let's go.”

Patton clambered to his feet. He offered Virgil a hand and pulled him up to his feet with ease. He didn't let go right away, waiting for the other man to look at him in question.

“Scaredy buddies?”

Virgil rolled his eyes but shook on it all the same.

“Yeah, sure.” He had a surprisingly lovely little smile. Shy, and a bit crumpled around the edges, but lovely all the same. “Scaredy buddies. Why the hell not.”  


 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Well, now.

Logan did not **do** stage fright. He'd never understood it; the worst possible outcome was the negative judgment of strangers. Something with which Logan was already well acquainted, and he'd long ago learned to pay it no mind.

Still. Looking out across the rows, half-blinded by the lights, Logan could state one fact with absolute certainty.

That was a crowd.

Those same lights had started to dim. The moderator had taken her place behind the podium. Soon the panel would begin.

Logan and the others would each be asked to introduce themselves. Name and class, as was customary, along with a brief description of their place in The Sander Sides' fan community. The panel would last for ninety minutes, during which they would discuss a variety of subjects related to the overarching theme. An additional thirty minutes at the conclusion had been allotted for audience questions.

...better. Reviewing the schedule and expectations always helped to lower Logan's stress levels.

“...so let's go ahead and meet our guests!” Valarie had done an admirable job of quieting the mob. “Welcome to Death of the Author. This panel is all about different ways of interpreting and interacting with the source material, so it's only fitting that our panelists come from every corner of the fandom. First up...”

A long table occupied the stage to the left of the podium. Valarie turned to gesture to the man seated closest to her.

Roman bounced to his feet and swept down into a bow in a single motion. He blew kisses to the front rows, grinning wide when several audience members swooned.

What a peacock.

...that was correct, wasn't it? See also showboat, braggart, prate.

Logan glanced at his tablet. It sat on the table, just to the left of his water bottle. It would take only a few seconds to double-check the definition.

Logan straightened his tie and folded his hands together. Roman had rounded the table and now stood center stage, arms spread wide as he basked in the hoots and whistles of his fans.

“I'm sure my glorious self needs no introduction! Roman Cantero, forever at your service.” Wait...didn't he **just** say no introduction was required? “I play...no, I **embody** the role of Creativity in The Sander Sides movies.”

Tsk. The early reviews for The Mindscape had been largely positive, but it remained to be seen if the film would perform well enough in the box office to warrant sequels. Roman was making a rather bold assumption.

“Oh, and I'm a dominant...not that there was ever any question of **that**.” Roman's wink was dramatic to the point of absurdity. Then again, Logan recalled reading that his previous roles had been confined to musical theater. No doubt he was used to playing to the back rows.

Peacock... **surely** that was the correct term. They were flamboyant birds, and as far as Logan was aware they served no usual purpose.

Roman was prattling on. If he could just...

Logan knew full well what was happening. He was hyperfixating, obsessing over something trifling and insignificant. The problem had always been that the knowledge alone did little to alleviate the condition.

Odd. The first entry in the urban dictionary seemed to suggest that peacock could be used in a complimentary fashion. Logan scrolled further down, until he found a definition that seemed more in keeping with his own inference.

...and now he was just confused. Of course, urban dictionary could hardly be considered a reliable source. Perhaps a different site...

A gentle nudge against his side made Logan lift his head. Patton smiled when Logan looked over and tipped his head toward the podium.

“Mr. Cohen?” By Valarie's tone it was not the first time she had requested his attention. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

Ah.

“My apologies.” Logan ignored Roman's smirk and set his tablet back on the table, thumbing the off button as he did. “My name is Logan Cohen. I produce, edit, and host The Sanders Side Deep Dive, a youtube channel dedicated to exploring various aspects of the novels.”

He glanced down the table toward V. E. March, then frowned when he saw the man was staring fixedly into the far distance.

...that might become an issue.

“I find the world building in particular to be quite fascinating,” Logan continued. His name. His relationship to the series. And now...

Logan cleared his throat, wincing a bit when the microphone amplified it more then he had expected.

“As for my class...I have none. I am neutral.”

The response was predictable. The crowd applauded on reflex, but there was an undercurrent of muttering underneath. Surprise, discomfit, disbelief.

There were still some who insisted neutrals did not exist. Which was, of course, utter nonsense. After all, Logan was quite assured of his reality.

“Well done.”

Roman had muffled his microphone with his hand and had to lean far over into Logan's space to make himself heard. His voice broke rough in a whisper, but there was no sarcasm there. Not in his voice and not in his eyes. He offered a fist, and Logan rolled his eyes before obligingly bumping knuckles. He shook his head in despair when Roman mimed an explosion.

' _Peacock_ ,' he thought, and smiled.

He could admit to some relief when Valarie moved on to the next in line. “You can call me Deceit,” the man said, “I help organize TS East and Prime. And I cosplay...with style.”

Indeed. Certainly Logan could appreciate the craftsmanship. Most who cosplayed the character were content with a fancy hat and a few stenciled scales.

This was much closer to what Logan had envisioned while reading the novels The snub-nosed muzzle and wide jaw created a convincing portrayal of a humanoid serpent. The costume too was book accurate, down to the torn embroidery on the double-headed crest.

Valarie's frown echoed Logan's own bemusement when 'Deceit' settled back his chair. “Anything else?” she prompted.

The man smirked...an interesting feat, given his appearance. “Ah, yes, of course. My class.” The smirk grew to reveal the thin, curved fangs of a viper. “...wouldn't **you** like to know.”

Wait.

Could he...

Could he **do** that?

Evidently so. Valarie huffed a sigh and gave the Deceit the middle finger from behind the protection of her podium. “Not sure what else I was expecting,” she mumbled, not quite sotto-voice. “Moving right along...”

 **Of course** he could. It was a social convention, not a mandate. Why had it never occurred to Logan that he could simply...not answer?

“Um...hi!” Patton stood long enough to offer a weak little wave before plopping back down with an umph. “I'm Patton. Most people probably know me as Rosefanficcer...oh, wow!”

Patton's eyes had gone very wide. He had to wait a long moment for the clamor of the crowd to fade before he could continue. “Golly gee willikers...thank you all ever so much! I can't believe so many people read my silly little stories!”

Logan had reviewed several of the other man's works for his channel, and 'silly' was not the word he would have used to describe them. Several of his alternative universes rivaled the original novels in depth and originality.

Complex. Engaging. Inventive.

Silly? Hardly.

“When I'm not writing fic I work as a nurse at Saint Jude's Little Center,” Patton went on, “Oh, and I foster for the animal shelter...puppies and kitties and bunnies, oh my! And that's pretty much all there is to know about little old me.”

He had also neglected to give his class, but then again it hardly seemed necessary. Not all nurses were caregivers, but it was close enough to an absolute that most would take it as a given.

And in any case...Patton **was** a caregiver. It radiated from him, and even Logan, null that he was, could feel it. Compassion, warmth, safety. Logan could not imagine there had been any question as to the results when the man had been tested.

“Our final guest...”

Whatever else Valarie meant to say was swallowed by the roar of the crowd. They were on their feet, clapping, stomping. **Screaming**.

Logan ducked his head. He waited, but it was only getting louder. Getting **worse**. He bite the inside of his cheek, working the flesh until it ruptured, the copper taste offering thin distraction.

He startled badly when a hand touched his shoulder. ' _Okay_?' Patton mouthed when Logan glanced over again.

Logan shrugged, then nodded. He would be.

Patton pointed to the horrifically pink bag between his feet, then to his own ears.

' _Plugs_?'

A kind offer. Logan smiled to show he appreciated it but shook his head.

And then his gaze drifted past Patton. To March, and something of his shock must have shown on his face.

Patton's head snapped around to the author. Stage fright now seemed far too mild a term. March's hunched shoulders, his glazed eyes...this was something closer to outright **terror**. 

The bedlam was waning, if slowly. Now Logan could hear March breathing. Too fast, too shallow, with a worrying wheeze on the inhale. Logan felt something bitter and painful twist in his own chest.

' _Sympathy_ ,' he thought, because it helped to put a name to it.

It seemed he was not the only one at the table who struggled with an abnormal stress response. Logan debated the wisdom in trying to signal Valarie. He was loathe to draw attention to March's condition, though the crowd would surely notice on its own soon enough.

He debated, and he thought through the variables, and in the end Logan did nothing. As usual.

It was Patton who reached out, who took March by the shoulder and **squeezed**. He had to, because March ignored his touch at first. Logan could see the instant the minor pain of the grip broke through the man's panic.

March came back to himself with a shudder and a gasp. His gaze flicked to Patton only briefly, and then back out across the auditorium. Some 5,000 fans, and all of them there to see **him**.

Patton leaned over awkwardly, covering his microphone with one hand and March's with the other. “Nope. Come on, kiddo...eyes on me.” Despite everything he spoke cheerfully, breezy and bright. “Let me see those baby blues.”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, and March flinched at the small, sharp sound and looked over.

“Hi there!” Patton said, too chipper by half.

Logan could not quite make out the rest of what he said, only the cadence of it. Unhurried and even, and March was nodding along, some of the terrible tension in his shoulders beginning to ease.

Patton finished speaking with a nod of his own, firm and resolute. March hesitated...

...and stood, planting his palms on the table and pushing himself to his feet with force enough to rock his chair.

The crowd went silent all at once, waiting.

“I'm Virgil Elliot March. I prefer, uh, Virgil. I'm, um, submissive.” Virgil's voice was low, but steadier then Logan would have expected. “I guess I kinda...wrote the books?”

It was oddly phrased, a question instead of a statement, but the audience reacted with another onslaught of pure noise. Virgil waited it out with no outward sign of distress. Logan strongly suspected the man had simply grown numb to his own dread.

If so, and if he was anything at all like Logan, he'd no doubt end up paying for it later.

“I gotta say...” Virgil said when he could, “This is all blowing my mind.” He gestured out across the rows. Eager faces and clapping hands, and this time the man's smile looked a little more genuine. “Just...fuck me...I don't know what else to say except thank you.”

It took Valarie a good few minutes to hush the horde. “That's our panelists,” she said, “And now...”

“Let's get right down to it.”

* * *

 

“Ship wars,” Patton said.

The entire table groaned in wholehearted agreement. “That's your least favorite part of the fandom?” Valarie confirmed.

“I mean...jumping geezit, things can get out of hand! It's a big old internet with room for everybody. Let people write what they like.”

Here here. Patton squirmed when he got a well-deserved ovation, his freckled cheeks fairly glowing under the hot glare of the stage lights.

“That goes for Virgil too.” Patton turned to the author, gracing him with a smile and a wink. “I'm rooting for Prinxiety, but in the ends they're **his** books. You do you, kiddo.”

Virgil had a surprisingly wicked grin. “A six way with Remus it is. “

The crowd erupted in boos and mock gagging. Virgil laughed outright, holding up both hands in a plea for mercy.

 _He's settled well,_ Logan thought. Surprisingly so.

“Now there's an interesting topic.” Valarie had proven to be an excellent moderator, never letting them get bogged down on any one subject for long. “Should fans have any influence over canon? Patton, if you'd like to elaborate...

* * *

 

 

“...I'll have you know I poured my heart and soul into that role!” Roman was on his feet again, leaning far forward to better glare down the table at Virgil. “I even...”

“I never said I didn't like the movie's Creativity.”

“...for weeks. How dare...wait, what?”

It was impressive how Virgil managed to give the impression of rolling his eyes without actually doing so. “I just said he was different.”

“...oh.” Roman sat back down slowly, and at least he had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Good different?” he asked meekly.

“I mean, I thought so. It made me look at the character in new ways, and that's, like, pretty fucking cool.”

Strange. Roman, who only seconds ago had been begging for praise, now look utterly overwhelmed by it. His smile was a shy, vulnerable thing...

...that grew in an instant into something wide and arrogant. “Was there ever any doubt? Of course I, the beautiful, the handsome, the divine...”

“That long-winded...” Valarie cut in. Roman sputtered.

Logan grinned.

He really rather liked her.

* * *

 

“....your stance, Mr. Cohen? You've been vocal about disapproving of fan theories in the past.”

“It's not the theories I disapprove of, merely the fandom's tendency to adopt them as canonical,” Logan answered, “We must remember that the only things we can be sure of are those contained within the pages of the novels.”

He nodded to the man to his left. “Consider Deceit.” The audience laughed when the cosplay wiggled gloved fingers in a jaunty little wave. “Until book three there was a popular theory that he was the source of the corruption in the mindscape.”

“Now, now, Mr. Cohen...” Full eye contacts gave the man the flat stare of serpent; Logan found it a rather disconcerting effect. “The series isn't finished yet. I might be playing nice with our heroes for the moment, but who knows? I might turn out to be a twisty little snake after all.”

Logan paused. “That...” he admitted, “...is an excellent point. However, it only furthers my point...”

His channel had some 50k subscribers, but Logan only rarely interacted with his viewers. Certainly he'd learned early on to avoid the youtube comment section. The quality of discourse there was...lacking...to say the least.

But this...

This was invigorating.

His fellow panelists were proving themselves to be clever indeed. The back and forth, debate and discussion and repartee...

This was **fun**.

 

* * *

 

And then it was over.

The mob was shuffling along toward the exits. The on-stage lights were dimmed, offering them some degree of privacy as they gathered up their bags and other belongings.

“Wow...” It was a whisper, only just loud enough to rise above the mumbling of the crowd. “We did it.”

“We did,” Logan said in answer to Patton, “That was...surprisingly enjoyable.”

“I think I passed out five minutes in.” Virgil eased out his slouch in a stretch that brought a series of sharp cracks from his spine. “I might have died. I may actually be a ghost.”

Roman looked him up and down with a leer that was too obnoxiously obvious to be crass. “You look pretty lively to me.”

Virgil gave him the finger with a vicious upward thrust.

“...anyone up for dinner, maybe?” Patton asked over Roman's offended squawks.

“I have signings all afternoon,” Virgil said, “I think I'll be pretty wiped, after. Sorry.”

“No, no, that's fine! Deceit, would....” Patton trailed off and looked around, his brow furrowed. Logan understood his confusion. The cosplayer had somehow managed to slip away without any of them noticing.

Patton was starting to look disappointed. He brightened considerably when Roman slung an arm over his shoulders. 

“I'm in,” the actor announced, “How about you, Nerdy McGlasses?”

“...I would like that,” Logan admitted, and was surprised to find that it was true.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter, I know. Up next...in which there is a fire, and the shit finally hits the fan


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some extra trigger warnings for this chapter. There's remembered child abuse and neglect, some potentially frightening scenes involving a hotel fire, and some self harm.

One two three four.

Five.

Five blocks high!

Green and yellow and red and blue. **Purple**. Purple on top, and Virgil burbled, sucking sloppy on his fingers.

“Five.” A whisper. Quiet quiet quiet as could be. Only little boys were loud, and five...five was a big boy number.

He counted again, just to make sure. Five. Five! And Virgil wanted, he wanted...

“Five,” he said, not quite a whisper anymore. Virgil glanced around, nervous but hopeful too. He wanted someone to come and see. Wanted to share all the pretty colors, stacked up so high.

But it was the gray room again. The lonely gray room. Just Virgil and his blocks, and that was okay. It was okay because Purple was proud. He didn't have a face, but Virgil could tell he was smiling.

He was proud because Virgil was a big boy. And if he was a big boy...

Virgil twisted to look behind himself. And there he was, looking back, and the green yellow red blue purple tower too. The ridge-a-mater was itty bitty. Not even half Virgil's size, but it was shiny and bright, just like the big one at home.

Just looking at it made his tummy angry. It growled and gurgled and **hurt**.

He'd looked for the snack and the sippy. Over and over again, up high and down low. He looked again now, just in case. Under the bed? Virgil had to scooch flat to peek underneath.

He didn't understand. The snack and the sippy never tasted very nice, but they were always there, waiting, even when Virgil was all alone. His tummy squirmed unhappy. It hurt, and his mouth hurt too, all sticky and tight and so, so dry. He snuck another glance back, chancing a little wave and smiling when his reflection waved back.

Virgil wasn't allowed to touch the ridge-a-mater. That was a RULE. It was a rule because Virgil was a dummy. He was a dummy little baby who made messes, even when he didn't mean to.

He didn't want to be a dummy. He wanted to be a good boy, and good boys waited and didn't make a fuss. But big boys...big boys could do things all by themselves. Like build a tower five (five!) blocks high.

Virgil stood. He crossed the room slowly, a shuffle step that kept most of the weight on his toes, arms spread wide to help him balance. When he reached the ridge-a-mater he hesitated, looking back toward Purple for reassurance.

This time...this time he wouldn't make a mess. He would be a big boy, and then maybe...

...maybe he could be a good boy too?

Virgil reached out for the handle.

That was when the screaming started.

Not the little buzz that Virgil hated, the little buzz that crawled deep inside and made him feel strange. This was so much louder. Louder and piercing and it came from everywhere, all at once. It was the room, the room was screaming, it was screaming because Virgil had been bad, he'd broken a RULE and it was screaming and it wasn't stopping...

Virgil didn't remember falling to the floor but he was there, curled up tight with his hands clapped down over his ears. And he was screaming too, screaming back, but the room was screaming so much bigger.

“M' sorry!” He was, he was sorry and he would never, ever cross-his-heart touch the ridge-a-mater ever again.

The room didn't listen. The room didn't care. Virgil sobbed, chest heaving, rocking back and forth and pulling at his hair. It wasn't the buzz, but the screaming felt like it had gotten inside too, crawling inside his head and squeezing Virgil out. He was only vaguely aware that he was scratching at his face, at his throat, the bitten-ragged edges of his nails opening jagged little wounds that bled bright.

He could hear other noises now too, somewhere outside the walls of the gray room. Muffled voices and slamming doors and hurried footsteps. Someone shouted. Virgil flinched back, bumping against the ridge-a-mater and scuttling away just as quickly.

Virgil covered his face with his hands and peeked out from between his fingers. Was someone coming?

He waited, still sobbing until he could barely breath for it, but it was still just Virgil. Virgil and the gray, gray room. Except...

Virgil scrambled over to the tower and snatched up Purple, sending the others tumbling down. He cradled the battered old block against his cheek, smearing blood and snot across the chipped paint.

It was mean, taking Purple away from his friends. Virgil was being a meanie, and that was worse then being a dummy, worse even then being silly. But he **needed** Purple, more then yellow and green and red and blue did. And Purple...Purple would understand. He always did.

Pounding. Pounding at the door. Virgil went very still, covering his eyes again and squeezing them shut for good measure.

“Evacuate!” Virgil didn't know what the word meant, but he didn't like it. It sounded scary. “Fire!'”

Virgil's eyes shot wide. **That** word he knew. He'd been bad that day too. He'd touched the stove, and Mister had been angry. Virgil had learned all about fire and the things it could do.

Fire **burned**.

There was more pounding, more calls to evacuate, but they were further away now. Virgil crawled behind the bed and huddled there, rubbing his thumb over Purple's dented corner and trying to find his courage.

'”...help,” he whispered finally, into the safe, dark space between his knees. “...'m scared”

He waited.

And waited.

Virgil choked back his tears and shifted onto his knees. He peeked out over the bed, holding up Purple so he could see too.

There was no one there. Just Virgil and his blocks and the gray, screaming room.

No one was coming.

 Dummy! No one ever came, no matter how much Virgil cried. He **knew** that.

He'd thought he could be big. But Virgil...Virgil was just little. He was just little, and he was scared, and he didn't know what to do.

And no one was coming.

Virgil looked at Purple, and Purple looked back. Purple had red on him. Virgil wasn't sure, but he didn't think Purple was smiling anymore. Purple was scared too. Virgil hugged him tight and looked back across the room, biting his lip raw as he thought things through.

He was looking at the door.

The gray room had a door. Someone had been pounding on it. Someone had been on the other side. Inside the gray room was just Virgil, silly little dummy Virgil. But outside...

Virgil keened, high and stressed. That was a RULE too. A big, big rule, even bigger then the ones about the stove and the ridge-a-mater. Virgil wasn't allowed to answer the door if someone knocked. He wasn't allowed outside. Not ever. Little boys had to stay in. Virgil had already broken one RULE, and now the room hated him. If he broke **two**...

Screaming was bad. It was terrible. It hurt his head and his belly and his heart. But there were things that were so much **worse.**

There was the dark. The dark where bad, little boys went until they could be big again. The dark, and all the things hiding in it.

But fire...

Virgil might have stayed where he was. Might have let the fire come and eat him up. Would have, if it hadn't been for Purple.

Because Virgil was little...but Purple was even littler. He was little, and he was scared, and most of all...

 

He was Virgil's.

Virgil pushed himself up, scrunching up his nose and whining when the wet, heavy denim of his jeans scraped rough against his already blistered thighs. He almost curled up again, because only dirty, nasty dummies wet themselves without a dippie.

Brave. He had to be big and brave.

For Purple.

He tried to bring green and yellow and blue and red too, but it was hard, too hard to hold them all. He'd pick up green and red would fall, or blue would bang against yellow and both would get a scuff. Virgil gave each a pat and kiss and put them back down gently in an untidy little line.

“Stay,” he whispered, “Be good. ' back.”

Talking was hard. The air was angry now, like the room, and it stung his throat and his eyes and made him cough cough cough.

He waddled over to the door. The handle wasn't a knob like he was used to. It was long and sideways instead, but Virgil thought he understood how it worked. He wasn't **always** a dummy. Sometimes he was a smartie, and that was just as bad.

Slowly, slowly, Virgil reached out. His hand was shaking so badly it took three tries to wrap his fingers around the cool metal. He winced as he did, crunching his eyes shut and freezing stiff.

Nothing happened.

Nothing good and nothing bad. Nobody came running to shove Virgil into the dark, but the room was still screaming and it was still hard to breath. Virgil squinted open one eye and pulled down on the handle.

It didn't move.

Virgil tried again. And again. Yanking down with all his weight, whimpering between heavy, racking coughs.

No no no no no. The voice on the other side had said fire. The gray room hated him, so why did it want to keep him? Why would it let Virgil **out**?

He kept pulling, kept trying. He was screaming again, thin and wispy but desperate. And it hurt, everything hurt, his chest and his throat but his head most of all. Right behind his eyes, a dreadful throbbing ache. Purple tumbled unnoticed to the floor when Virgil bent double, clawing at his temples in a confused attempt to somehow release the terrible pressure building in his brain.

Virgil came back to himself with a bitten off moan. He fell against the wall, panting through clenched teeth and shaking hard enough to rattle his bones. His eyes were wide but staring blankly, blinded by the pulse of agony and shock.

Aging up abruptly wasn't recommended for good reason. Virgil was well used to migraines and disorientation. But this...this was bad. His skull felt three sizes too small, an egg on the cusp of hatching out something half-formed and dead on arrival.

And what the fuck was that **noise**?

Something was wrong. **Everything** was wrong. If he could just remember...

The signing. Shaking endless hands, scrawling countless names. Both better and worse then the panel. Better because it was one at a time, worse because it was up close and personal. Patton. Had Patton been there?

...scared. Where was Purple? Purple was little, and he needed, he needed...

Fuck fuck fuck. He was slipping. Patton. Patton had brought him lunch. Soup and a sandwich. Roast beef? It had looked damn tasty, but Virgil hadn't been able to eat it. More hands, more names.

...Purple! Virgil plucked the block off the carpet with a little cry of relief, apologizing for dropping him in frantic little whimpers. Purple would...

The elevator. Why had the damn thing been so **slow**? By then the disassociation had been coming and going in waves, leaving Virgil feeling like a character in someone else's novel. It was a warning. By the time the doors opened it had taken all of Virgil's willpower to walk, not run, to his hotel room.

...a dummy, meanie baby. And now...now the fire was going to burn Purple, burn him up, and it was all Virgil's fault. All because he'd thought he could be a good boy, just once. Just once...

Virgil shifted his grip on the wooden block in his hand and slammed it down into his thigh. Grinding the sharp point against the weeping flesh under his jeans, and the hurt was bright and sharp and grounding.

Fire. The noise...it was the fire alarm. No drill, and not a prank either...he could smell something acrid, something that coated his tongue with the wet penny taste of copper.

Virgil shook himself, a full body spasm more then anything purposeful, and turned back to the door. He was aware now of the clinging, clammy denim...no diaper. He must have regressed before he finished prepping.

Terrific.

...it was a big hotel. What was the chances that the fire was on the same floor? Virgil **probably** wouldn't die a horrible, fiery death if he took twenty seconds to change.

It was tempting enough that Virgil took a step toward his suitcase before thinking better of it. Stupid, sure, but not terminally so. At least his jeans were black and hid the damp. Worst came to worst he could always throw himself into a snowdrift.

Virgil flipped the deadbolt on the door and stepped out.

The hallway was empty. Virgil was probably the last flipping moron left in the whole damn building. The smoke was thicker out here, a haze that hung heavy and gray. Virgil pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth, but already his lungs felt tight. He coughed.

It was a mistake.

Once he started he couldn't stop. It tore through him, until he was gagging with it, drooling and wheezing and **dying**. Fucking hell. He was going to pass out and burn in a shitty hotel hallway because his little side was too damn stupid to work a door latch.

What a way to go.

Somehow Virgil pulled in a thin, acid breath. Stairs...they were down the hall and around the corner, right next to the elevators. Then he just had to make it down nineteen stories. No biggie.

If he made it out of this he was never going to another convention. Giles could suck his miraculously still alive dick.

Focus. Step one...get to the stairs. Had the hallway always been this long? Virgil couldn't find the air or the energy to run. Shit. Don't panic. He ran his thumb over Purple's dented corner without being aware he was even holding the beaten-up old thing. Panic wouldn't make breathing any easier. And for the love of all that's emo, don't fucking...

...he was out. Finally out of the room, the gray, meanie room.

But this new place was gray too. Gray walls, gray carpet, gray doors. So many doors, all in a row. Some of them were wide open, and Virgil crept over to peek into the closest. It looked just like the gray room, only different. There were pretty, colorful clothes scattered across the floor that Virgil didn't recognize.

Virgil looked down at Purple. He didn't understand, and neither did Purple.

They were out! Out of the room, but the screaming...the screaming hadn't stopped. It hadn't been the room after all.

It was the world. The world was screaming.

The world was screaming, and Virgil...

Virgil was still alone.

Still just Virgil.

Virgil curled around Purple, there on the gray floor between the rows of gray doors, and started to cry.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter...the other boys have a nice dinner out. Boston gets some snow. Points converge.


	8. Chapter 8

Tequila Mockingbird.

A drunken, olive-toting bird, flat on its feathered back, wee talons in the air. Roman chuckled, earning himself an askew glance from a passing couple. Patton's choice, no doubt selected for the name and sign instead of the strength of its reviews, but the place seemed cozy enough. As Irish a place as one might find in Boston, all dark slab wood and the bitter smell of hops.

Lively too, with more then a few outlandish costumes in the mix. A Remus in flouncy green at the bar. A group (A collection? A herd? A storm cloud!) of Anxieties together at one table. The servers didn't bat an eye. This close to the convention hall they likely had far stranger war stories.

Now where...

In a room of armored knights and cloaked mages Logan's tailored suit made him stick out like a particularly nerdy thumb. He had his face buried in his tablet- no surprise there- but the little ray of sunshine at his side was busy scanning the crowd.

Looking for Roman himself, no doubt, and it was a point of mingled pride and chagrin when his gaze passed right by him. He was almost on top of the pair before those big brown eyes went wide with startled recognition.

“Oh! Ro-”

“Shush!”

A hiss. Too loud, too harsh, and Patton and Roman flinched together.

“My deepest apologies, my lovely Rose.” Roman reached out, hesitating long enough to be sure of his welcome before taking the other man's hand. He pressed a kiss against his knuckles, beaming bright when Patton gasped and giggled. “That was horribly rude.”

Roman had been raised better then that. A proper Dom did not **loom**.

...at least not unintentionally, and certainly not over someone so soft and sweet.

He tucked his chin. Rounded his shoulders in an uncomfortable hunch, hyperaware now of the size difference between them. Logan's unimpressed stare was not helping. “I'd simply prefer to stay incognito this evening.” Roman gestured at himself, a wide sweep of the arm that encompassed the whole. “Hence this hot mess.”

No mascara to make his eyes pop. No foundation to even out his blotches. No, Roman was au-naturel, exposing the faint acne scars spotted across his forehead and the fresh crop of pimples sprouting on his chin.

And the outfit! **Aggressively** beige. Beige pants, a beige coat, a beige beanie. A travesty in taupe, with nary a designer label to be seen.

“Hey now!” Patton made a show of looking Roman up and down, then gave a sharp,decisive nod. “I think you look in-con-credible!”

Aaaand then they were hugging. Hugging was happening. Roman squeaked when he was glomped, a quick, hard squeeze that emptied his lungs.

Sweet? 

Most certainly.

Soft? 

Maybe not so much.

He gave the other man an awkward pat on the back and huffed in relief when he was released.

Logan was decidedly less enthusiastic in his greeting. “You are seventeen minutes late.”

Oof. And here Roman had honestly tried! Two alarms, set fifteen minutes apart, and still time had gotten away from him. Who knew that dressing down was just as complicated as dressing up?

“I assure you...” Roman threw in a wink and a smirk just to watch Logan glower, “...that I'm well worth waiting for. Shall we?”

By the time they were seated Logan's mulish expression had faded. “Incognito.” He spoke the word with a strange sort of savor, rolling it over his tongue to test its heft. “I must commend you on your word choice, though I must also admit that I am confused as to your reasoning.”

“I'm **Creativity** , Logan.” Roman nodded to a man in a sash and a crown a few tables down. “And not the discount version either. **The** Creativity. Unless you want a side of riot with your dinner...”

Roman loved his fans. He did! But two days of staying Instagram ready, of signings and overexcited teenage screeching...

It was a lot, is all.

Logan grimaced.

“Point taken.”

“I'm surprised you don't have security,” Patton said, “A big star like you...” The twinkle in his eye (pun very much intended) had Logan bracing for impact. “...I'd have thought you'd have all sorts of peeps in orbit!”

“I may possibly have given them the slip,” Roman admitted over Logan's tortured groan. He paused, digging deep for the geekiest reference he could find. “Even the brightest star must venture out on a solitary trek from time to time.”

A little forced, sure. Far from Roman's best work. But Logan made a sound like he was quietly dying, and Roman was prepared to count that as a win.

At least Patton appreciated his genius. Teamwork was a beautiful thing. “Won't they be mad?” he asked after they were done high fiving.

“Eh.” He was sure to get an earful from Remy later, but he'd been Roman's handler long enough now to expect a certain level of shenanigans.

“Worth it.”

 

* * *

 

It really, really was.

The burger alone. Rare enough to ooze. Slathered in ketchup and mustard and A1. Topped with a fried egg and frizzled onions. All of it tucked between a buttered brioche bun.

Heaven. Angels on high, saints singing, glory be, **heaven**.

“You, uh...you really enjoyed that, huh, kiddo?”

Roman snarfed down the last fries (crispy on the ends, mealy inside, salted to perfection) and forced a hard swallow.

“S'good.” He wanted to be embarrassed, but **damn**. A year of salads and protein shakes had given him new appreciation for the pleasures of good old-fashioned, finger-licking grease.

His next weigh-in wasn't going to be pretty, but that was future Roman's problem.

Oh, and the company hadn't been half-bad either.

Sure, Logan had seemed determined to relive the panel, asking stilted questions and pushing for detailed answers.

What was their pick for strongest entry in the series? Their predictions for Remus' end game?

Which implied Remus had any sort of plan at all, and Roman thought was was giving the figment far too much credit. Someone else was pulling the strings. Deceit. Too obvious. No, Roman was convinced that the true villain of the tale was none other...

...then Thomas Sanders himself.

Logan had scoffed. Sputtered, then frowned, head slowly tipping to one side as he stared off into the middle distance.

Roman was still riding the high of cracking the egghead's mind wide open.

As for Patton...

“Just how many dogs do you have, Pat-the-Pup?”

A squash-faced mutt sprawled out on the grass. A terrier strapped into a neon pink wheelchair. A monstrosity of a drool machine taking up the entirety of a couch. The meal had passed by in a blur of shaggy fur and lolling tongues.

Patton thumbed over to one last snapshot (a poodlely little thing, its curls a perfect match for Patton's own.)“I wish! Those were all foster babies.”

There was regret in his smile, melancholy in his sigh. Enough to keep Roman from asking why Patton hadn't adopted a pooch or two for himself.

Logan cleared his throat, offering up his tablet with a shy, not-quite-chagrin. It was really rather endearing. Roman would not have pegged the man for a pet person, or at least not the sort prone to showing off his furry- or in this case feathered- companion.

Resplendent in royal blue and gold. Roman whistled in appreciation, even if that big black beak looked wickedly sharp.

“Hera,” Logan said by way of introduction, “He is a twenty-eight year old Hyacinth macaw.”

“Oh, I've seen him on your channel!” Logan allowed Patton to take the tablet in hand, the better to coo over the parrot up close. “Hera...that's Zeus's wife, right?”

Logan titled his head again; it made him resemble the older, more responsible, and terminally dull brother of the bird on the pub's sign. “Correct.” He sounded surprised, but there was enough respect and pleasure behind it to save it from being patronizing. “But in this case it is short for Heraclitus of Eshesus.”

Patton's blank stare was a relief. Roman still felt like a dim-witted dullard, but at least he was in good company.

“He was a pre-Soratic Greek philosopher. Best known for the concept of Logos as a divine, unifying force. Much of his work is self-contradictory, but his influence...”

Logan adjusted his tie. A practiced little twist of the wrist, and oh, lord. He was settling into it.

“...universal flux and the law of opposites. His Ionian predecessors...”

Ten minutes later, and Roman had learned more about long-dead white dudes then he'd ever wanted to know. At least the distraction had given him the chance to grab the check without a tedious discussion.

And really...it wasn't so bad. Pretty damn bad, yeah, if only because Roman had the attention span of a toddler mainlining pixie sticks and Red Bull. But Logan...

Logan was **glowing**. Easing up, rocking in place to the rhythm of his lecture, and it was a good look on the man.

Only...

Their waiter was starting to look a little antsy. Not-quite-hovering, in the way that waiters do when a table has overstayed their welcome. It was prime hours now, and the line of cranky, hungry con survivors was straggling out the door. Roman spotted a Morality in an absolutely stunning ballgown. Baby blue, soft gray, all of it sequined to within an inch of its frilly life. The contrast only drove home his own current mediocrity.

Ugh. **Beige**.

Roman cleared his throat. Gently, but still Logan cut himself off mid-word. “Am I monopolizing the conversation?” The question seemed quite genuine. “I am a professor of philosophy, but I understand that not everyone shares my fascination with the subject.”

“No...you don't need to apologize!” Patton assured him.

Logan quirked a brow. “I wasn't.” 

“It is I who must offer an apology for the boorish interruption.” Roman nodded to where the busboy and the waiter had joined forces in eyeing their empty plates with predatory interest. “Perhaps it is best if we take the discussion outside?”

Wait. Hold up.

“...you teach philosophy? Like...to students? In a class?”

That elegent brow arched higher, and really, for a poindexter his tweezing skills were **on point**. “Is that so surprising?”

“A little,” Roman admitted before he could think better of it, “I just would have bet on something like accountant.”

And hell...that was pretty gross. Roman knew how it felt pigeonholed because of his class. After all, Doms were meant to be CEOs and politicians.

...not actors.

“That was shitty,” he said plainly, “You know what they say about assumptions...”

Logan blinked at him. “...that they are a willingness to accept something as true without question or proof and represent a common logical fallacy?”

“Uh...yeah. That.”

“In any case, your expectation is understandable. It is true that statistically most teachers are classified as caregivers,” Logan said, “And it is also true that I have a natural aptitude for mathematics. I find philosophy fascinating precisely because I sometimes struggle to understand aspects of human behavior.”

Someone else may have flustered at admitting to such a weakness. But Logan spoke with straightforward honesty. He knew who he was, and Roman envied that.

Logan smiled.

“If you lack understanding, seek knowledge. It is our greatest weapon, and our greatest defense.”

The quote from The Mindscape got an excited little squee from Patton. Logan looked well-satisfied as he started to gather his things. The busboy swooped in before they were fully out of their chairs.

They made their way through the jostling crowd and stepped outside.

...and into a winter wonderland.

There had been a dusting earlier. Now...

Cotton candy snowdrifts. Fat flakes reflecting green-blue-green under the neon lights. The soft crisp-crunch of their footsteps.

Beautiful. Magical. Patton clapped his hands and spun a circle, face tipped up and tongue outstretched.

Roman **hated** it.

Instantly and intensely. He was already shivering.

The other two made noises of confusion when he made an abrupt about-face and retreated under the safety of the pub's overhang. Roman waggled his phone at them.

“I'll call a car.” It would mean enduring Remy's inevitable scolding and an early ending to his night of freedom, but Roman was a San Francisco boy born and bred. He didn't **do** snow.

“It would be expeditive to simply walk,” Logan said, “You are both staying at the Westin as well, are you not?”

Patton and Roman shared a look.

“Wow...what an con-founding con-winky-dink!” Patton said.

A callback.  Nice. 

“How...” Roman asked. 

“Hardly,” Logan said in answer to Patton, “We are guests of the convention. The organizers receive a discount when they book rooms by the block. I assume the Westin was chosen because of its proximity to the convention hall.”

So Logan wasn't a creepy-ass stalker. Good to know.

Roman squinted down the street to where the Westin loomed, two blocks and a brisk five minute stroll away.

“But...snow.”

It may possibly have been a whine. Utterly unbecoming of a Dom of his caliber, but seriously. **Snow**.

“Come on, Ro!” Not one of Patton's 'foster babies' could outmatch the puppy dog eyes currently turned Roman's way. “It's such a pretty night! And if you're cold, you can have my scarf...you'll be cozy warm in no time!”

It turned out teamwork wasn't nearly so pleasant when Roman was on the wrong side of it. He huffed and surrendered to his fate, scuttling back before Patton could lasso him.

“You keep that, little padre,” he said, “Your company will be warmth enough.”

He offered an arm. Patton giggled, high and sweet, and linked their elbows together. The height difference made it a tad awkward, but between Roman shortening his stride and Patton skipping they made do.

“So, Logan...” Patton had to lean around Roman to see the other man. Already snow was collecting in his curls, splintering the street lights into a fairy-tale halo. “Could you explain more about Logos? I'm not sure I understood...”

Aaaand Logan was off. Patton spared Roman a little smirk, and his eyes were happy and very soft.

Roman huffed and grumbled and thought that maybe, just maybe, snow wasn't so bad after all.

 

* * *

Roman stomped the snow from his (terribly expensive, and regrettably beige) boots and unwound the scarf from around his neck.

“My gratitude, Pat.”

The lobby of the Westin was blessedly, wonderfully warm. Roman peeled off (Patton's) mittens and blew on his chilled fingers, flexing them until the feeling came back.

Boston was a lovely city.

...or at least that's what Roman would tell anyone who asked.

Earlier in the day it had taken ten to fifteen minutes to get an elevator. With the con over for the day that traffic had thinned out significantly. Roman hit the button for the penthouse and shuffled to the side to let the other two chose their floors, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he did. He'd paid for the upgrade out of pocket, and he was more then looking forward to sprawling out across the king sized bed.

“You have a panel tomorrow, right?”

Roman nodded. “Two, actually. And signings after.”

Patton hid a yawn of his own. Logan resisted, but Roman was sure he saw the man's jaw clench. It wasn't even nine! Roman couldn't have imagined just how exhausting a convention could be.

The numbers flickered by on the display overhead. Roman watched through half-lidded eyes, debating if he should text Remy before or after his shower. 

“I have a panel myself in the morning.” Logan scrolled through the con's app on his phone with a frown. “But I have some free time in the afternoon.”

Patton perked up at that. “We could do lunch! Maybe Virgil would...”

He cut himself off. Wrinkled his nose. “What's that smell?”

Whatever it was, it was terrible. Thick and sharp and somehow oily. More of a taste then a odor, a burn that caught in the back of the throat. Logan straightened from where he been leaning against the wall.

“...I would postulate...”

Chaos.

The unholy screech of the fire alarm. The jolt as the elevator cab came to a sudden stop. Roman and Logan tangled arms when they both reached out to steady Patton.

They looked at each other. Wide-eyed, and Roman could see his own graceless, instinctive thought reflected back.

_'Oh **shit**.' _

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Westin is an actual hotel, but I'm playing fast and loose with the size and layout. The bit about con's booking rooms for paid guests in blocks is true. 
> 
> Can I just say that I dread writing both Roman and Patton? Puns and word play are NOT my strong suit. 
> 
> Next chapter- The boys get their cardio for the day.


	9. Chapter 9

The elevator lurched again. Up, down...impossible to say.

Patton squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for freefall. Huddled close against the others, and selfishly, horribly, he was grateful not to be alone.

A moment passed.

At his side Patton could feel Logan starting to sway. Sway and then rock, their shoulders bumping together with increasing force. Another moment, and Roman pulled away from them both.

Patton opened his eyes. Slowly, cautiously, half-convinced that somehow that would be the tipping point that doomed them all.

Roman. Scrabbling at the mirrored door. Trying to pry it open, and when that failed hammering at it with his fists. He'd bruise soon, bruise and bleed, and all without more then a shallow dent to show for it.

Logan. Tugging at his tie with his left hand and hitting his forehead with his right. Hard enough to rock him back on his heels with every strike, keeping time to the undulating wail of the alarm.

And Patton...

Patton didn't even know where to **start**.

“Roman, stop.” A half-shout in hopes of being heard, and Patton winced himself when Logan flinched from it. “ **Please**.”

Roman spun away from the doors and fell to pacing. There wasn't room for it, leaving him to step-turn-step, snarling to himself all the while. A furious dog chasing its own tail.

Good enough for now.

Patton turned back to Logan. And faltered, unsure without a class's ingrained instincts to guide him. Should he draw himself up, speak firmly, like he would with a sub? Trust in his own caregiver's aura, like he would with a little? Try to distract, like he would with a dom?

...and then Logan was reaching out. Grappling with him, pulling him close, and for a confused instant Patton thought the other man was trying to hug him.

Well, okay then! Unexpected, but hugs were easy. Patton could do hugs! He brought his own arms up, and his bag was yanked from his shoulder with force enough to make him stagger.

Oh. Oh!

Patton cursed himself for a silly goober and batted Logan's hands away from where they fumbled with the zipper. He dug down, pulling out bits and bobs from his bag willy-nilly. Until finally he found it, a little black case.

Logan let Patton help him screw the heavy-duty earplugs into place, bending low and tilting his head to make things easier.

“Better?” Patton mouthed.

Logan nodded. He was still rocking in place. Not the gentle side-to-side from dinner, when the man had been relaxed and eager to share his knowledge. This was forward and back, a violent jerk of the shoulders.

But he'd stopped hitting himself, and instead of pulling on his tie he was fiddling with the length of it, twining it over and under his fingers.

He paused just long enough to sign something rapid and complex. Finished, he quirked a brow, a clear question.

Patton tapped his first two fingers against his thumb. Pointed to himself, then rocked an invisible infant in his arms.

“ _No. Baby.”_

The sign language of the deaf was just that...a language. As intricate and rich as any other, with its own distinct rules of grammar and structure.

The gestures taught to babies and non-verbal littles bore only a superficial similarity. Basic nouns, simple verbs. It came in handy (ha!) at the hospital, offering even the littlest of Patton's littles a way to express their needs.

But for a man like Logan...

_'Good,_ ' Logan signed, but by his frown he meant something else entirely. Something closer to 'it'll do.'

_'Sorry.'_

Poor Logan! Restricted to finger spelling and baby gestures... **talk** about frustrating!

...that was a bad pun. A borderline **mean** pun. Patton **pun** -ished (stop, just **stop** ) himself with a mental kick in the keister. First thing when he got home he was taking a sign language course.

(When. If. Two little letters. A huge word, and Patton had to lock his knees to keep them from buckling under the weight of it.)

He was distracted from his spiraling thoughts by Roman. Passing close by, hands clenched, trembling with a dom's drive to act. To **do**.

...something. Anything. Until finally Patton planted himself in the bigger man's path. For a very real moment he thought Roman meant to run him over.

But Roman stopped. Just there, close enough for the tips of their shoes to kiss. Patton had to crane his neck back to see the other man's face, and it would have been easy to take it for a power play. A show of superior weight and height. A way to put this chubby half-pint caregiver in his place.

Patton reached out. Cautious, evading Logan when the man tried to yank him back. Took Roman by the hand and gave a little tug.

And Roman yielded, docile as a woolly little lamb, letting Patton pull him into the circle. Patton held up a hand to them both for patience and dove back into his bag, unearthing a rather battered cardboard box from its depths.

The face masks were the cheapie kind, disposable and more suited to preventing the flu then keeping out smoke. Logan eyed his with disdain before slipping it on. Roman chuckled, a throaty little sound that ended with a cough.

Patton giggled. The kitty faces printed on the masks were just gosh-purr-adorable! Patton wasn't even kitten around!

He giggled, and he couldn't stop, and he was **terrified**.

He flinched when Logan turned toward him. Patton had watched enough old-timey movies to know what happened when someone got hysterical. He flinched, but even so he turned his head, showing his cheek and waiting for the stinging pain to blossom there. If it helped...

Logan's hand hovered over his shoulder. Not quite touching, and it must have been hard for him to offer that much. The noise, the smell, the tiny space...the last thing the other man needed right now was **more** sensory input.

But here he was, reaching out. And Roman too, moving close and standing steady, oh-so-carefully patting Patton on the back (pat-the-Pat!)

They were so kind and so strong, so much stronger then he could ever hope to be. Patton swallowed back the giggles and the guilt.

He was supposed to be taking care of **them**. That's what he was **for**.

The three men looked at each other, eyes solemn over whiskers and pink button noses.

_Now what?_

“The elevator must be malfunctioning.” Logan spoke much too loudly, even with the alarm taken into account, but then he likely couldn't hear himself well enough to know it. “In an emergency it should have been recalled to the ground floor. I trust you attempted to utilize the control panel to open the door?”

Roman blinked.

“Of course I did! I'll just...give it another go. For safety's sake. Just in case.”

He stomped away, heavy footed, and Patton surprised himself by finding a genuine smile. ' _No_ ,' he signed to Logan, and by the man's eyeroll he had suspected as much.

They joined Roman just as he smashed in the lowest button on the panel with an aggressive jab of his thumb.

The doors slid open.

….

Roman cleared his throat. He might have made excuse. Might have claimed that his earlier efforts had jostled a loose wire back into place, or insisted again that he had indeed tried each and every button, basement to penthouse.

It was to his credit that he only gestured them forward with a sweep of his arm. Out in the hall the smoke hung heavy, a silvery haze that made Patton think of the clouded sky and softly falling snow outside. He had to pinch himself then, because suddenly none of it felt real. Dream-like, like he might be tucked safe and snug in his bed, Martha curled at his feet and snoring sweet.

Ouch!

Not a dream. Martha had been adopted (a lovely couple, just perfect for such an active pup, and Patton had hardly cried at all) a week ago. And Patton was here, so very far from home.

They hesitated, looking about, but there wasn't much to see. Just the smoke and the long, empty halls stretching out to either side.

Left? Right? “This way.” A booming command, but a fit of coughing ruined Roman's attempt at confidence. “The stairs...”

He made it three steps before Logan caught him by the back of his coat and jerked him back. He let go as soon as Roman turned, scrubbing his hands together to rid them of the feel of the fabric before going back to playing with his tie. Behind his glasses his eyes were streaming tears, but it seemed more reflexive then emotional and Logan himself paid it no mind.

“Here.” A bright red door next to the bank of the elevators. 'Emergency exit' in strong, bold text, with a picture of a little stick figure fleeing ahead of the flames. “Stay low.”

Logan spoke sharp, signing as he did. It was smart of him to save his breath. Already Patton's chest was starting to feel tight.

Roman shouldered past, using his height to peek through the little window set high in the door. Whatever he saw made his shoulders slump in relief.

Relief that Patton shared when the other man opened it. There was life in the stairwell. Voices drifting up from down below, stragglers rushing past from up above. Selfish again, but knowing they weren't the last souls left in the building helped.

Relief, until Patton spotted the number on the wall.

19.

Somehow it hadn't occurred to him to check what floor they were on. 19. And Patton, flabby Patton with his bad knees and worse hips...he was going to slow them down.

He knew already that the other two wouldn't leave him behind. Even though they had met just that morning, even though when the convention was over and done they would likely never see each other again. They would stay by his side, because that was the kind of people they were. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do, that would convince them to go on ahead.

He was going to get them killed.

“Slow,” Logan said, and Patton startled, hearing it as an accusation, an echo of his own thoughts.

Instead it was a warning, directed at Roman most of all. “Careful,” Logan told the other man, “No rush.”

And Patton could see it, how badly Roman wanted to take them both by the hand and drag them down the stairs by force. Logan's words checked him, but only just. He ushered them forward, Logan first, then Patton. Patton took a deep breath (too deep, and it lodged in his throat and made him cough until he gagged) and started to step through.

Wait.

He stopped mid-stride, and it was luck alone that kept him from plummeting down the stairs when Roman ran into his back.

He ignored the other man's questions and attempts to urge him on. Head high, listening for something he wasn't quite sure he'd heard.

...was that...

Again. Slipping through between one cycle of the alarm and the next. Patton couldn't be sure, but he thought, he thought...

Or maybe it wasn't a sound at all. Maybe it was all instinct, and if Patton trusted anything he trusted that pull. When a patient had a nightmare, when they were frightened and alone and most needed a hand to hold...Patton **knew**.

He always knew.

Still he dithered. Just a little longer then he might have if he'd been alone. Roman was pushing, and Logan was waiting, and if Patton got it wrong...

The siren dropped away again. So briefly, ramping back up to a squeal in the space of a faltering breath, and Patton spun on his heel. Roman caught him by the arm when Patton bolted past, a bruising grip. Patton tore himself free with desperate strength and scrambled back out into the hall.

There was no question of direction now, just that ache in his gut driving him on. He could feel the other two at his heels. Could hear them shouting, but he couldn't listen, couldn't stop.

Down the long, long hall. Around the corner...

Patton skidded to a stop. It didn't surprise him to see someone huddled on the floor. Curled up into a tight ball. Shaking, sobbing, and that ache bloomed fierce and hot.

No, it didn't surprise him to find a little. Lost and alone and in need. The only surprise...

“Virgil!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter- In which Roman tries his best. 
> 
> (He already knows it won't be enough.)
> 
> (It never is)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Trigger warning for a small, oblique reference to the Twin Towers)

“Please, kiddo. Just let me...”

Sweet, not soft. Roman remembered thinking that of Patton at dinner. And now Virgil...

Little, but **fierce**.

Eyes swollen nearly shut. Every breath a rasping struggle. And still he was fighting them. Not with fists but with snapping teeth and ragged nails, and if Patton wasn't careful he was going to lose an eye.

A warrior! Roman could admire that.

“Come on, sweetheart.” Patton was fluttering, reaching out and drawing back, his round, earnest face crumpled with the desperate desire to comfort. “It's just silly old Pat. Remember me?”

And Logan...Logan was hovering. Swaying in staccato bursts, his expression above the mask one of deep confusion.

Roman could sympathize.

Virgil, a little? Where was his caregiver? Why hid it?

(Roman thought he could guess. Not the details of the mystery but the shape of it, and it made his stomach churn. This wasn't a tantrum. Wasn't a kid lashing out at his would-be rescuers after one too many lectures about stranger danger.

Virgil was **cowering**. Curling in to protect his head and belly, and no little should ever look so terrified.)

“Patton...” Roman fought to keep his tone even. Just loud enough to be heard over the unending squall of the alarm (bastard thing, he would be hearing it in his sleep for **months**.) “We need to hurry this up.”

He could admire it, yes. How Virgil snarled, spitting crimson from lips bitten ragged raw and grisly. Roman wanted to be patient with him, wanted to stand aside and let Patton do what Patton did best.

But the smoke was growing thick and hanging low, a scrum of ash that obscured the doors further down the hall. Roman could taste it bitter on his tongue, gritty and slimy both, and it made his already uneasy gut roil.

“Patton...” Roman warned again. He was twitching with it, the drive to **move** a lash at his back. He wanted to gather them up. Herd them like a collie with a flock of wayward sheep, nip at their heels, do whatever it took to get them **out**. To see them safe.

“I **know** ,” Patton snapped without turning around. He took a breath (gagging on it,hacking ugly and rough) and gentled. Not just his voice but the set of his shoulders, the curve of his back, went soft and small and mellow.

“Remember me?” he asked again.

Logan made a thin, high noise of distress when Patton tugged his mask down. Really, though, they should have seen it coming.

“Scaredy buddies, right?”

But it was working. Virgil was uncoiling, just slightly, squinting up with not-quite-recognition. The whites of his eyes were mottled red where capillaries had burst, giving him a ghoulish look.

“Easy...” A mumble, hoarse but high, choked off by phlegm. “...peasy...”

“Lemon breezy,” Patton finished, “That's right!” He shuffled a little closer, and Roman felt the tight, hard knot in his chest ease a little when Virgil allowed it. “Not gonna hurt you, kiddo. Not ever. Cross my heart...”

He went on cooing, little comforts and whispered reassurance, and Virgil didn't seem to know what to make of it. He was starting to look more bemused then frightened. Still wary, but hopeful- or maybe just willing- to be surprised.

Patton slowly (so slowly, and Roman had to grit his teeth, clench his fists) started to reach out.

Roman saw him hesitate. Saw when Patton thought better of taking Virgil by the shoulder and moved to take his hand instead.

He saw too how Virgil tensed. Went rigid, and Roman was already moving before Virgil exploded up off the floor. All reflex, snagging Patton by the collar and yanking him back.

The bulky wooden block just narrowly missed catching Patton in the temple. If it had...

Virgil may have had the mind of a child at the moment, but he had a grown man's strength.

“No!” There was no anger in the little's cry. Just desperation and stark panic. He brandished the building block again, clenched in his fist, knuckles blanching white from the force of his grip. “Mine!”

Patton was flailing, off-balance and dazed. Roman pulled him clear before Virgil could have another go at bashing his skull in, nodding his gratitude when Logan stepped in to assist.

He half expected Virgil to come after them. But already the little was curling back up, tucking the splotchy old block tight to his chest and folding his body around it. Hiding it, Roman realized.

Protecting it.

Brave boy. The admiration grew, shifting to something tender and sharp-edged. Roman had played the prince maybe times, and here was a knight he would be proud to have at his side.

Even so...

“No no no...” Virgil trailed off. Calming down? No...just growing weak, panting quick and shallow, his face going gray under the ruinous scratches marring his cheeks.

Patton pushed against Roman's hands, hell bent on returning to Virgil's side. Logan bent awkwardly to sign something in front of the nurse's eyes, one-handed, short and choppy and increasingly frantic.

And quite suddenly Roman was **done**.

He stepped forward, dodging Patton's wild grab when the other man tried to stop him. Virgil shrank back when Roman's shadow fell across him, lips pulling back in a growl.

They had no **time** for this!

“Roman, don't...” Patton.

“I would suggest...” Logan.

Roman had to reach down deep for it. Had to draw it up, drag it out from his core and into the light.

He put everything he had, everything he was, behind it. All of his strength, yes, but also all of his fear. The fear that he wasn't enough, would **never** be enough. That he would fail, as he had so many times before.

“ **Stop**!”

And...

...wonder of wonders...

They **listened**.

All three of them. Went still, and looked to him.

To Roman.

Put him on a stage. Ask him to sing and dance and play the part. The lights, the applause, that singular, magical moment when the crowd surged to its feet. All eyes on him, and oh, how Roman loved it!

But there and now, with an audience of only three...

Always before he would have wilted. Drawn back, because that was what Roman did. Who he was.

Not this time.

He couldn't. Not if he wanted them all to survive.

Roman held his head high and slipped into someone else's skin. It was just another role. Not a fairy tale prince, or a hero with a cape of red.

Just a man.

A man who knew what the fuck he was doing.

“Stay,” he told Logan and Patton (and they did, they **did** , and Roman knew better then to let his surprise show.)

He dropped to a crouch. Held his hands up to show they were empty and ducked his head low until he could capture Virgil's shattered, red splattered stare.

“ **Virgil**.”

Only that and nothing more. Low and calm and **powerful**.

It was the mark of a true dom, to hold the whole of a person by their name. Comfort and control, order and acknowledgment. _'I see you,'_ and _'I have you.'_

Roman had only a vague hope that it would work. But there was something about Virgil...something that called to that place at Roman's center.

Virgil was a little. That didn't mean he wasn't also a sub.

...and Virgil responded. So easily, so perfectly, going lax with a sigh and dropping his head to show his vulnerable nape.

“Oh...” Roman caught himself looking back to the other two, startled by the ease of it. “That's...that's good. Now let us **help** you.”

He beckoned over his shoulder and Patton was there, spring-loaded. Wiping the blood and snot and tears from Virgil's face with his sleeve, and the little accepted it, even leaned into it, eyes fluttering closed. Having surrendered to one he seemed not just ready but eager to surrender to them all.

“Alright, pumpkin. Roman here is going to pick you up, but no one's going to touch your block, okay?”

Virgil mumbled something Roman couldn't quite hear. Patton nodded solemnly.

“Purple...is that their name? No one is going to touch Purple.” They coaxed Virgil into sitting upright, sandwiching him between them when he wavered. “Now, look here...see the kitty face? Do you like kitties, Virgil? I'll just...there we go. Purrfect!”

Three masks to a pack, damn it all. They really, really should have seen this coming.

“Padre...”

Patton slapped Roman's hands away when he made to reach for the elastic of his own mask. Playfully, lightly, so as not to spook Virgil, but his eyes were narrow and sparked a warning.

It was a * **look** *. And Roman, dom extraordinaire...

He knew how to pick his battles, is all.

Just another reason to hurry. One arm under Virgil's knees, the other under his shoulders, and it was no great burden. (All bone, a wisp, no substance, and it hurt to feel the lack.)

“Arms around my shoulders, buddy.” It took a few tries before Virgil did as asked. The block in his hands pressed rigid against Roman's throat. If only it could have been a blanket or a teddy, something soft and plush and convenient.

Now. Down the hall. Around the corner. Except...

“Logan?” Remy liked to joke that Roman could get lost exiting stage left. With the doors stretching out to either side...and the smoke...

Gray on gray, and he couldn't afford to take chances.

Not with Virgil in his arms. Curled so sweetly, tousled head resting against Roman's chest.

Logan tipped his head in answer. The rhythm of his rocking was slower now, unsteady, his hands pulling tight the tie at his throat. The unending noise (bastard, bastard thing) and stress of it all were all too clearly taking their toll.

Left. Down the hall. Around the corner. (Roman in the lead, and it wasn't very dom-like that it made him as giddy as it did.) And then finally, finally, the stairs.

Only two flights down (17(!) to go), and already Roman knew they were in trouble. The stairwell was narrow, the steps themselves thin. Their watering eyes and the hanging haze blurred the edges and turned them treacherous.

And though Virgil was no great burden, he was an cumbersome one. His long legs, the way he lay passive, making no attempt to help balance them both...

16.

15.

Roman could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, trickling down under the top of the mask and rousing an itch he couldn't scratch. He was breathing heavy...breathing that sour, gritty smoke, lungs protesting the strain of it with hitching spasms. Against his chest Virgil was shuddering in little hiccuping gasps, too weak now to properly cough.

And Patton, without a mask at all...he was wheezing and starting to lag, a frenzied flush splotching his cheeks. Behind him Logan was only a little better off. Instead of rocking he was signing, not to Patton or Roman but to himself, stopping every other step to smack a palm against his forehead.

Turning to check on them was Roman's undoing. Feet tangling, and thank Shakespeare he was only a few steps up from the next landing. Otherwise he would have taken a header, would have broken his fool neck and taken Virgil along for the ride.

Still Virgil keened at the jolt, arms going strangle tight around Roman's neck, the point of that damnable block digging sharp into his jugular vein.

“Virgil...” It was hard to sound confident, to sound dominant, when one was being choked. “Virgil, let up...”

He did, but Roman could feel his hold over the little was wearing thin. Could feel how Virgil had gone rigid, no longer trusting in Roman to see him safely through.

14.

13.

Roman's shoulders and arms were starting to burn. Behind him Patton was whining with each step, a miserable little sound. Roman could only take it on faith that Logan was still close on their heels.

12.

Footsteps. Thundering toward them from high above. Roman risked tripping to hurry down to the 11th floor landing, tucking himself into the corner there. He motioned as best he could, but Patton was already hobbling quick to join him. He signed something to Logan, and by the widening of the other man's eyes he understood the danger.

They flattened themselves tight to the wall. Roman with his back turned outward, folding himself around Virgil as Virgil had folded around his block. A meat shield for something infinitely more precious.

He looked over his shoulder as they closed in. Four men, red-faced and puffing, a frantic clot of humanity. Two wore only boxers. One was barefoot. All of them looked drunk. Drunk or stoned or both.

Probably both.

“Slow down!” A valiant attempt, dear Patton. But if earlier Roman had pictured himself as a sheepdog, the others as sheep, then these men...these men were bulls, stampeding blind and uncaring of who they might trample.

“ **Stop!”**

It tore out of him. A roar, and if volume alone was enough surely the mob would have dropped to their knees.

But Roman could feel the difference. In his throat, in his chest, in his bones. In his heart, and that lonely place instead of him fractured a little more.

It shouldn't have mattered. There was room. Enough for the strangers to pass by single file. Two by two, even, if they were careful.

They weren't careful.

An elbow drove into Roman's kidney. The pain was white hot and brutal, and he only just managed to keep his feet when his knees buckled. It jostled Virgil again, had him scrabbling at Roman's shoulders in clumsy panic.

They were shoved, kicked, pummeled. Logan hit the wall with force enough to empty his lungs with a whoop. Roman heard Patton cry out, high and shocked and **hurt**.

Then the men were gone, clamoring down down down and away.

Patton was pulling himself up, leaning heavy against the railing and rubbing at his hip with tears in his eyes. Logan was making terrible noises as he struggled to breath, something between a gurgle and a groan.

And Virgil...

Virgil was screaming.

Roman saw it in slow motion. The block bouncing. Down the steps, tumbling end over end, a merry, bright blur against a monochrome backdrop.

If they'd had any luck, any luck at all, it would have careened to a halt at the next landing. So it was scarcely a surprise when it ricocheted off the wall and disappeared through the railing, leaving a smear of periwinkle behind.

Virgil **howled**.

“Virgil!” Not a command but a squeal. But there were **teeth** snapping at Roman's cheek, and for such a skinny thing Virgil was all sinew and fury.

It was all Roman could do to hold on. He knew that if released Virgil would bolt, would get himself killed trying to save a battered, antique toy.

Patton was there, trying to help but too flustered to make a good job of it. Patting uselessly at Virgil's back, whispering comfort that went unheard under the little's keening.

And poor Logan. Bent double in the corner, mask askew, puke splattering his shoes between ragged bouts of coughing. His expression was strange. Not pained but aghast, as if his body's rebellion was a deeply personal affront. Roman had the insane thought that it was a pity to see one of Tequila Mockingbird's deliciously greasy burgers go to waste.

(It seemed so long ago, their dinner. Roman felt a wave of warm nostalgia for it, that distant life **before**. It felt like he had always been here, in this hotel, in this stairwell.

He missed his mother, suddenly and viciously.)

“Come **on**...” A collie, sheep, bulls...and here was Virgil, a different beast entirely. Something feral and glint-eyed. “Please, please, we'll find him. Just calm down...”

Skinny fingers hooked into Roman's mouth, sharp nails dragging across his gums and flooding his tongue with the sudden taste of iron. Roman shook himself free, slinging blood, then grunted deep when the little landed a solid kick to his groin.

“That will be quite enough of **that**.”

They all froze at the new voice. Even Virgil, startled into stillness.

Deceit.

He stood a few steps down, staring up. Slowly, and with a fine sense of drama, he held up a hand. And there, balanced in his yellow-gloved palm...

“Looking for this, I presume?”

 (The bastard knew how to make an entrance.)

Roman squawked when Virgil lunged, shuffling quick to keep his footing when the sudden shift threatened to tip them both. Deceit abandoned his posturing to hurry forward and press Purple into the little's grabby hands.

“Sorry, sorry...” Virgil sounded so sure of his guilt. Plastering the flaking paint with kisses and weeping exhausted and relieved. “Mine. My Purple...”

“How...” Patton asked.

Deceit managed to make a shrug look elegant. “Right place, right time. I saw it fall and heard the little one pitching a fit.”

He said it so casually. No biggie, as if anyone would have done the same. Walked **back** , climbing up and away from the promise of safety.

But while he may have been playing it suave, the man was as disheveled as the rest of them. Half out of costume, no doubt rousted from his room halfway through shedding his cosplay skin (clever, Ro!) Hair matted flat after a day in a bowler, still in dress pants and thigh high boots. No coat or cape, just a plain white tee that clung in all the right places.

Dude was **stacked**. Abs for days. Broad shoulders.

But it was his face that had Roman staring. Rude, and he knew it, but he couldn't quite make sense of what he was seeing.

Scrubbing away the spirit gum, the strange satisfaction of peeling off floppy latex prosthetics. Until finally it was his only his own face in the mirror, and the less said about that the better. Roman was intimately familiar with the process.

The muzzle and jowls were gone, the scales wiped away in haphazard patches from the man's cheeks and forehead. It left him piebald and patchy, the skin beneath roughly textured and mottled brown and shiny pink. Rucked up in places and stretched taunt in others, dotted here and there with stray smears of viridian.

The contacts too were absent. The revealed right eye a pleasant and ordinary brown. The left...milky white and shrunken, the corner clotted with a jellyish ooze, the rim a bright, irritated red.

The Deceit of the books was a shapeshifter. Always on the outskirts of the action, his face any face but his own, too slippery to hold. And for a moment...a fleeting instant...Roman thought this might be how he would look mid-transformation.

A bit obscure for a cosplay, but an impressive effect nonetheless.

“Are you finished?” Deceit's tone was one of terminal boredom. “I know I'm a rare beauty, but now really isn't the time.”

It was the movement of his mouth, how it wrinkled his cheeks and narrowed his eyes. Roman knew stage make-up. How prosthetics shifted and pulled, how the layers of foundation and paint looked under the light.

This wasn't make-up. Wasn't something that could be scrubbed away at the end of the day.

“Shit.” What kind of ignorant, oblivious **asshole** gawks at another man's scars? “I didn't...”

Deceit waved off his sputtered apologies. “I do believe we have bigger concerns at the moment. Survival, for a start.”

He pushed past Roman to join Patton and Logan on the landing. Logan still looked shaken and a little distant. Retreating into his own head, Roman reckoned, and couldn't find it in himself to blame the man.

“Can you keep going?” Deceit asked them both.

Patton bit his lip. Hesitated, and Roman felt his stomach sink.

“My hip...”

Deceit nodded. “You'll lean on me. Give me the bag.” Snapping his fingers when Patton was slow in handing it over. Matter settled, he turned to Logan. “You...what do you need?”

He glanced at Patton when he (presumably) repeated the question in sign. It took Logan a long moment to answer.

“...a distraction.”

Deceit faltered at that. Roman wasn't proud that it made him feel better, just a little, to see the man at a loss.

“Oh, I know!” Patton signed something, patting his hip with enthusiasm and then wincing at the ache of it. “Now you,” he shouted loudly enough for Logan to hear. “But different!”

Confusion. And then Logan brightened, bringing a hand near his cheek and pinching the air in a stroking motion. Patton clapped in approval.

“Word association,” Logan said, “Yes. That would be acceptable.”

And then Deceit's eye was on Roman. Shrewd and calculating, taking his measure and finding it lacking.

“That's not going to work. Give him here.”

Roman took a step back. Pure instinct, holding Virgil close and turning as if to shield him from a threat. “I have him.” A growl, a warning.

Deceit looked vastly unimpressed. “I'll give him back. I can't very well carry that one and help this one...” a jerk of the thumb toward Patton “...at the same time.”

Point taken. Virgil balked at the transfer, but only briefly and with none of the thrashing panic of earlier. Reunited with his precious Purple, he'd gone pliant and sleepy, too worn down to offer more then a token fuss.

Deceit was shorter then Roman, making for an awkward picture as he struggled to handle Virgil's lanky frame. Still he smiled at his bundle, secret and small. It softened him, that smile, .

“Now turn around and kneel down.”

Roman did as he was told, understanding now what Deceit had in mind. It **would** be easier.

Provided Virgil had the strength to hold on.

But Deceit had a plan for that too. A conference with Patton, and then they were jury-rigging together a harness. Positioning Virgil piggyback style and binding him to Roman's back with whatever would do the job. Patton's coat, rolls of bandages from the bag, a messy, effective hodgepodge.

“Here.” Logan offered his tie, and Roman knew it for the sacrifice it was.

They used it to secure Purple to Virgil's hand. “So you won't drop him,” Deceit told Virgil when the little whined. “See? Nice and safe.”

Finished, Deceit took a step back and scrutinized their handiwork. “Alright. Let's give it a try.”

Roman stood. Slowly, getting a feel for the shift in balance, and already he could feel the difference. Virgil nuzzled in, sighing sweet into Roman's ear.

“It's good,” Roman said, loathe as he was to admit it.

Deceit moved closer to Patton, pulling the man's arm over his shoulder. Shorter then Roman, but still taller then the tiny nurse, and he had to stoop to make it work. “We'll go first. Then Logan, then you.”

Roman bristled. Deceit huffed a sigh. “If you fall, we might be able to catch you.” He rubbed at his blind eye, stifling a wince, and suddenly Roman could see the strain under the polished veneer. “What's more important, your ego or his spine?”

When he put it like that...

10\. 9. 8.

It was working. They were making better time. Deceit and Patton at the front, limping along, Patton stretching his free hand out to the side and signing clumsy and slow.

“Bottle,” Logan would answer. Or “Milk” or “Father” or “Black.” Simple words, and if Roman didn't understand the game they were playing he appreciated the rhythm of it. It kept the beat as they marched along, and holy hell.

It was **working**.

They were going to make it **out**.

(He thought briefly of towers crumbling. Thought that the people in them must have thought the same, in the seconds before the world fell apart around them.)

7.

Roadblock.

A cluster, a dozen at least. Jostling and generally getting in each other's way. No purpose to any of it, just frightened animals doing what frightened animals do, clawing and pushing and fighting to be first.

Deceit didn't stop.

Just plowed ahead, dragging Patton with him. “Keep close,” he said over his shoulder. And then...

“ **Move**.”

The mob parted. Pressing back against the wall and railing, bellies sucking in for that extra precious inch of space. One man made as if to hold his ground. A look from Deceit and he was scrabbling to clear the path.

Roman could feel it too, the resonance like a hook pulling him along. Urging him to listen, to give way. The dom at his core made of show of resisting.

But there was a deeper place. A small, secret place close to his heart.

Roman dropped his head. 

Followed, and was content.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter- In which Deceit has terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. 
> 
> Oh, not because of the fire. It's the people who are the problem...


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PSA that I've added a story exploring the classification testing from Logan's POV. You can read it here: 
> 
> [Follow here for teen Logan and his awesome momma](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293489)
> 
> If people are interested I might do a testing day fic for each character. I thought it might be a good way to explore the verse and characters a little more.

Vilem was not a man given to impulse.

He was slow to act, always. For every action, a reaction. For every reaction a ripple, a tangle in the web.

Fools rush in. Vilem aspired to be many things, but he **refused** to play the fool.

Until a block came tumbling. Fetching up against his heel, a barely there pressure that made him turn.

And then a scream.

A man's deep wail, and trapped within it a child's simple, all consuming fear.

Slow to act, quick to think. A worn, wooden block. A little's howl of loss. A panicked babble of reassurance, only just audible under the alarm.

...and Vilem was moving. Scooping up the toy and ascending. Cursing himself with every step, because this was worse then foolish. This was outright **stupid**.

Even stupider to linger. To throw in his lot with these four idiots, but a glance had been enough to tell him someone needed to take charge. He hadn't gone through the effort of returning the block for the little to die with it in his hands.

Four **familiar** idiots.

But that was helpful, in its way. Slow to act, quick to judge. Ferreting out strengths and weaknesses was what Vilem **did.** It was what made him a formidable journalist, feared by politicians, priests, and anyone else with sins to hide. Their time together on the panel had given him ample time to observe. 

Oh, he didn't pretend to know everything about what made these four tick. Still, he rather thought he knew  **enough** . 

Logan. Uneasy with other people, but settled solidly into his own shape. Smart, but not always clever or wise. Strong enough to fight for his due without becoming bitter in the battle. 

Roman. Dominant, but only just. Thoroughly convinced that he wasn't enough. Played the part in a grasping, desperate attempt to be bigger, better,  **more** . Easily distracted by shiny things. A mess, albeit a remarkably pretty one. 

Virgil. Damaged. Even so, there was surprising courage and tenacity there, a determination to carry on despite the shards. And in those moments when he forgot to be afraid there was wit, the kind of snarky dry humor that Vilem could appreciate.

(He had not pegged the man for a little, but those were the sort of secrets Vilem had no interest in exposing. There were lines, and things that were no one's damn business.)

Patton. Pushy, but so sincere about it that no one had the heart to call him out. Self-sacrificing to the point of absurdity. Probably drove his friends and family to despair. No armor. Everything was right **there.** Right there on the surface, exposed and terrifyingly vulnerable.

Patton, who was currently panting harsh in Vilem's ear. Every few steps he would sob and gasp out a desperate chant of denial.

“I can't I can't I can't...”

But Vilem knew that he **would**. To do otherwise, to give in to the pain and exhaustion...well, that would be selfish. And that was as far from the man's nature as being generous was to Vilem's.

Logan, though...he was worried about Logan. The man was on the edge of collapse. A little more pressure and he would crawl up inside his head. Would take refuge there, cozy and comfortable, even if it meant the rest of him charred and burned.

Roman at least was holding steady. Following along behind, and once put in his place he seemed willing enough to stay there. Good. Vilem had no patience for doms who mistook instinct for ability.

“I can't I can't...” Even as he whimpered Patton kept signing. Pulling Logan along by laying down a bread crumb trail of words. “I **can't**...”

Keep them moving. For once in his life Vilem had no intricate plans, no cunning gambits. One foot in front of the other. In the end that's what it all came down to. Just keep going.

And the day had been going so **well**.

Oh, there had been the usual catastrophes. There always were. Unattended teens running wild. Drunken doms throwing down in the parking lot. Broken projector, missing mikes. Speakers who let their panels run over or showed up late.

But they were old hands at this by now, Talyn and Vilem. The volunteers too, a well-oiled machine, somehow always right where they needed to be.

Vilem had taken his last walk-through at 7. Through the exhibition hall and artist's alley. Down all the meandering halls where the panels were held. A quick pass through the food court. Immersing himself in the flow of the crowd, and things had felt right. Smooth.

Last in his rounds had been the little room, with its bustling attendants. Just next door to the safe space, with its dim lighting and soft music. Talyn had caught up to him there. Had offered to babysit the concert that evening so that Vilem could make an early night of it.

He'd protested, of course. Made all the right noises, and Talyn, stubborn Talyn, lovely Talyn, had refused to play the game. They knew his tells, knew that he was tired and aching and all too eager to retreat.

Vilem's loved his serpent's skin. Deceit...complex, canny, patient. Excellent fashion sense.

It was a pity that the contacts were such a bastard bitch to wear.

That side hurt anyway, as a rule. The particular prickly numbness of damaged nerves. The rasping irritation of chronic dry eye. He was religious with his eye drops, but they could only do so much in the absence of a functioning tear duct. Throw in full sclera contacts on top of that, and by the end of the day headache didn't come close to describing the pounding pressure in Vilem's skull.

And Talyn...

They had known. Not the why, or that the pain was to some degree self-inflicted.  But they must have spotted **something**. The tension in his shoulders?  The clench of his jaw? They had insisted, and Vilem had surrendered with a modicum of grace.

He had left them there. Standing in that hall, and that meant they were fine. They were safe.

(But if...

If they had forgotten something. Had wanted a change of clothes. A five minute shower before the concert. A million and one reasons why they might have stopped back at their room. And Vilem...

He was worried for his friend.)

And if the headache had been bad then? It was so much worse now, a sickening pulse behind his bad eye. And the eye itself...a coal, glowing cherry red and sizzling. He should have grabbed one of his eye patches before evacuating.

They were coming up on another group. Vilem steeled himself for a confrontation...

The woman in the lead nudged her friends to the side and waved them on. Tipped her chin to Virgil by way of explanation, and Vilem dipped his own in gratitude as they passed.

Four more stories. They might just make it.

“I can't...” Patton rasped.

Vilem fought the urge to shake the man.  "You already are."

Patton stumbled.

Lurching sidways and into Vilem, an accidental hip check that pushing him up against the railing. There was a flailing moment of confusion as they both tried to find their balance.

A twist and a brittle crunch. A terrible sense of **wrongness**.  Vilem stared down at his arm...caught between the railings and bent in a way arms should not bend.  

"Sorry, sorry!" Patton made to pull away.  Squeaked when Vilem yanked him back against him with a snarl.  "...you okay?"

He hadn't seen, then.  Vilem slid his arm free...

And only then, pain. 

...mother fucker.

"Peachy."  Vilem took a step down and swallowed down a scream.  "Keep moving."

One foot in front of the other.

There were more people the further down they went. A few more made way. Others...

Others had to be pushed. With confidence and resonance, and the effort had Vilem blinking away black spots from his already limited vision. He shook his head, a ragged dog gesture, and felt something in his head **slide**.

Only for an instant. A split second switch to the other half of his nature. He faltered. Very nearly fell to his knees.

“Please, I can't...”

It was the anger that brought him back. A foreign feeling. Anger was a quicksilver thing, all fury and flash, and Vilem was slow. Slow and steady.

“Shut it.” Cruel, but **really**. The whining was starting to grate.

Patton bobbed his head, acknowledgment or apology or both. He felt the flex of the other man's shoulders as he signed.

No answer.

Vilem risked breaking their pace long enough to look back at Logan. Still with them, thank fuck, but his eyes were empty. And that was fine, because he was still trudging on. Still moving.

And just behind him Roman. Dripping sweat, snorting for air, face gone ruddy. Virgil was slumped in his harness, dark head bent at an awkward angle. Unconscious?

Please let him be unconscious. Not...

Vilem turned away. They were so **close**. Just a little further. Slow and steady, despite the jackrabbit beat of his heart. Slow and steady despite the dizziness.  Despite the rotton tooth agony of his arm.  Slow and steady puts one foot in front of the other. 

Slow and steady keeps fucking going.

It took Patton planting his heels to force Vilem to a stop. He tugged, fitful and frustrated, gulping air in an attempt to find breath enough to bark an order.

…cold air.

“Deceit!”

Patton shook him.  Just gently, but the sway did his arm no favors.  "We're out!  Deceit, we did it!  We're out!"

Out? Had there been a door?  Vilem didn't remember a door.  Couldn't have said when they crossed the threshold, when in had transitioned to the mysterious out.

Everything around him was a blur. He scrubbed the gritty tears from his good eye until he could make out the gawking crowds, the firetrucks and flashing lights. He could see his own breath steaming up and away.

It was snowing.

Vilem turned his face to the sky and let the flakes cool his cheeks. Breathed out a shuddering sigh.

And stopped.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The aftermath. Ain't nobody having a good time.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible TW for (hopefully) realistic depiction of sensory overload and dissociation. 
> 
> *Dissociation in general seems to be becoming a general theme here, with various characters experiencing it in different ways.*

Logan was ten years old before he realized that not everyone tasted words.

A shock, to learn that when others spoke the words had shape, had meaning, but no flavor.

He rather pitied them. Because words?

Words were **delicious**.

The longer and more complex the better, of course. Layered in meaning and piquancy, with a savory roundness that tingled on the tongue.

_Epistemology_. A feeling of fullness, bulging at the cheeks. Meaty, with a dense, solid core that split slowly between the molars. The musty smell of mildewing paper.

_Fugacious_. A hint of mint, here and gone again. A flutter of wings. A snap of fleeting heat.

_Melancholy_. A slow drip of bitterness. Dark chocolate and coffee and river mud.

But there was something to be said too for the basic and ordinary. A much needed comfort when all else was unsteady and strange.

_'Dog_ ,' Patton had signed.

The fuzzy pop of carbonated water.

_'Cat_ ,' Logan had returned.

Tarragon, with a flickering finish.

And so it went. ' _Glass_.' Wet silk over ice. ' _Bottle.'_ Maple thickness. ' _Cereal_.' More a texture then a taste, a scattering of small, hard edges. _'Milk.'_. Sugar and a fatty film. _'Mother.'_ Construction dust and pancakes. ' _Father_.' Basil and the bitter pith of lemon. ' _White_.' Ozone and mineral water. ' _Black_.' The heavy taste of licorice. 

And it worked, at first, the words. Gave Logan something to lean into, a haven of simplicity in the storm.

It worked...

Until it didn't.

There was no specific tipping point, no catalyst. ' _Play_ ,' Patton signed, and try as he might Logan could not offer a response. Could not draw a connecting line between one thought and the next. 

And without thought, without words, what was left? Only his body, dumb, animal thing that it was. Only sensation. Without thought he could only feel, and Logan's problem had always been that he felt so  **much** . 

He had dressed that morning in clothes that were familiar. Trustworthy. Now the soft cotton sleeves of his dress shirt rasped rough against his arms. His shoes were tied much too tight. His belt; a constricting, pinching pressure. His collar; a strangling band tight around his throat.

The tickle of his hair at his nape. The tug of the face mask's elastic string against his ears. The snuffle-thick mucus clogging his nose.

And over and above it all, the undulating wail of the alarm. Muffled, but still a brutal assault.

He wanted...

He wanted to curl up. Make himself small, hide away until the silence returned.

He wanted...

He wanted to go home.

Not his condo, with its sleek clean lines and open floor plan..  Back to his little bedroom at the top of the stairs. The honeyed wood of the bookcases his mother had built for him. The framed posters of the Enterprise and the Tardis and the periodic table. The room that still waited for him, the room that would always be his. 

A juvenile desire. It was a point of pride for Logan that he was as independent as he was. And mother and father...they had been the ones who had supported him in becoming so. Had helped him find ways to cope in those moments when he was overwhelmed.

First, anticipate. Know his own limits, and recognize that they would fluctuate. Bring headphones if a place was likely to be noisy, a puzzle cube if he was likely to need a fidget. Things he had admittedly grown lax with of late.

And if he did find himself in a situation that exceeded his threshold? Never be afraid to ask for- and if need be, insist upon- accommodations. Sometimes a little change made all the difference. Eating in the library instead of the lunchroom as a child. Instigating a rule that his students silence their cellphones as a teacher.

Never mind the mockery or judgment of others, he had been told. If stimming helped, then stim. And finally, perhaps the most important lesson of all...

Failure was an option.

If the situation itself could not be changed, if his normal techniques were ineffective, he was always allowed to remove himself. To simply walk away. Politely, but without apology or shame.

None of that was helpful now. The nature of an emergency meant it could not be anticipated. As for asking for accommodations...

Logan had been told early and often that his needs were reasonable and to be respected. As he matured he had come to understand that not everyone agreed. His parents had fought for him when necessary, and in doing so had taught him how to fight for himself.

But this wasn't the school counselor's office or an HR department. There was no one to appeal to. No one to debate, or threaten with legal action if it came down to it. The fire, if there was one, would not care to hear anything Logan had to say.

Words, which had always been Logan's treasure and his weapon, held no power here.

He could stim, at least, but not in the ways that felt best. He had to be careful of his balance, had to keep the rhythm of his gait. Logan had spent years training himself away from such self-destructive habits, but he could hit his chest and keep moving forward, could strike his forehead with one hand and hold onto the handrail with the other.

The percussion helped...

...just not enough. Not nearly enough.

Nor could he gather up his books and bag and quietly exit. The only way out was through.

And it hurt. It hurt and he was tired and he was close, so close, to giving in. To curling up with hands over his ears and squeezing shut his eyes.

But...

_Home_ . 

One word, one thought, to hold onto. Construction dust and pancakes, lemon pith and basil. Hugs that were always just the right amount of pressure. Comfort and patience and understanding. An evacuation like this, at a convention this large? Surely it had already made the nightly news. And Logan's family was big enough, widespread enough, that surely at least one member would be watching. Calls would be made, and eventually word would reach his parents.

They would be worried. Father would be baking. Brownies from a mix or sugar cookies from a tube. Stress made him forgetful, and he would leave them in the oven for far too long (to this day Logan preferred his brownies dry and his cookies crispy.) His mother would be pacing. Back and forth across the black and white checkerboard linoleum that she so often bemoaned as worn and outdated, but refused to replace because she knew Logan loved the strong, clear lines of it.

And in that moment, torn between the need to hide and the desire to survive (to go  **home** ), Logan found that his dumb, animal body had its uses. 

He gave over control. Let himself be submerged under the weight of it all. His vision was blurring, focus narrowing down to the backs of the men in front of him. His skin had gone from hypersensitive to nearly numb. And still his body carried him on, with scarcely any input at all from his mind.

Step down. His body was there, in the stairwell with the siren and the smoke and his too-rough shirt and too-tight belt. Step down. But his mind...

Logan wasn't there anymore. Step down. Logan was somewhere else.

He saw the pink smudge in front of him stumble. Saw Patton push the man they knew only as Deceit against the railing. Saw Deceit's arm slid between the metal posts and twist in a brutal fashion.

He saw, but he could not capture what any of it  **meant** . Step down. 

Logan was with the stars.

He was in the backyard on a clear summer night. Kneeling between his mother and father and adjusting the range on his brand new telescope. He would own others later, large and sleek and far more powerful, but that first Junior Astronomer Explorer still held a place of honor on the shelf above his computer monitor.

Memorization. A strange hobby, some would say, but even as a child Logan had found something enthralling in lists and the dry recitation of facts. Enthralling, but often disappointing when the list was short, when it could be mastered and subdued in the span of an afternoon.

So for his birthday his parents had given him the stars in all their multitudes. And with each star its own list. Distance, if it was part of a system, its common and proper names. Something he could study for many years to come; a precious gift indeed.

He had learned them first by constellation. Tidy little groupings. Orion. Canis Major and Minor. Aries.

The names ran through his head, and they were only that...names. No taste of peppercorns or apples or sulfur to tantalize and excite. Untethered from their lists of facts and from the myths and fables that had so fascinated him as a boy. Empty things, but still Logan held fast to them. Found refuge in them, far away from his body and all the things it felt or did not feel.

Step down.

Phoenix. Cygnus. Pegasus.

They had reached the base of the stairs. They were crossing the hotel lobby. The front doors were standing wide, and they were passing through.

They were outside.

...and it was worse. Somehow, impossibly, it was so much worse.

If Logan had been in his body he would have recoiled. Would have crumbled where he stood.

There were lights. Flashing blue and red and blue and red and  **bright** . There were people. People shouting, people running, people embracing. Movement. Everywhere movement, unpredictable and threatening. There was snow, a heavy fall that made his body shiver. 

But Logan wasn't there, and he saw it all as a swirling mass of color. A nebula, floating somewhere far distant.

...Sextans. Taurus. Virgo...

He saw Deceit stumble forward. Saw Patton pull the other man to a stop. Saw Patton turn and look up. Craning his head back, up, up to the top of the hotel and the flickering, flaring light there. Saw the man's face crumble with emotion that Logan could not be bothered to try and understand.

Patton was pushing past Logan. Moving back toward the hotel, and Logan stepped aside to let him pass.

“ **No.** ” A snarl, sharp and vicious enough for Logan to hear. Deceit had Patton by the arm. Shook him hard, hard enough to make Patton's head snap forward and back. “Don't even think about it, you **moron**. We need you **here**.” 

Words. They passed through Logan without impact, drifting up and away like the smoke billowing from the flames. But Patton was nodding, Patton was sobbing rough and turning away, moving back past Logan to Roman's side.

Roman. On his knees, head bent low, sweat soaked and spent. Virgil on his back, limp and lolling, mask stained yellow with bile, eyes glazed. But open, blinking dully up at Patton, and that was good, wasn't it? That Virgil was conscious and responding, however slowly? It felt to Logan like that might be good, in that faraway place where his body lived.

Deceit was helping Patton in his efforts to free the little from his harness. Struggling one-handed with the knots, until finally he gave up and turned to the crowd, calling out hoarse and broken.

No one came.

...Leo. Gemini. Lyra...

Logan blinked, and Patton was standing in front of him.

“... _okay_?” 

Hands tracing the same shape again and again. Pointing at Logan in-between, and none of it held meaning.

...Perseus. Musca. Crux...

“... _okay? You_...” 

...Capricornus. Ara...

Patton was stepping closer. Was lifting his hand. Was reaching out.

Touch.

A hand on Logan's shoulder. No pressure behind it, more a suggestion then contact, but it made Logan spasm. Made him wrench away with the violence of a punch.

It woke him, and Logan could not help but hate Patton for it.

' _ Sorry _ !' Patton scrambled back, hands held high in apology. 'Okay?' he asked again, mouthing it instead of signing it this time. 

Logan shook his head. He really, really wasn't. But then...neither was Patton. The man stood off-kilter, hip cocked and heavy on his heels. He coughed, wretched and thick, and spat a thick wad of phlegm into the snow.

Neither was Roman. Who still knelt, shoulders shuddering, a miserable picture of fatigue and strain. Or Deceit...arm cramped tight to his chest, blind eye swollen nearly shut. And certainly Virgil...

Virgil.

“ _Help_?” Patton asked, but Logan was already moving toward the little. Because as vulnerable as he felt, as overwhelmed as he was, Virgil was even more so. 

There was a smear of watery vomit down the back of Roman's shoulder. Logan eased the yellow-stained mask away from Virgil's face and let it fall sodden to the pavement. Littering. He was littering...but the alternative would have been to tuck it away in his pocket, and that Logan simply could not abide.

Virgil was panting shallow and quick. The little had been exposed to the smoke longer then any of them. Who knew what toxins he had inhaled or what the long term repercussions might be? They needed...

And with the thought they were there. Firefighters and police officers, glorious in their uniforms, descending on the crowd en mass. Shepherding people away from the building. More chaos, but of a controlled sort.

“We have injured men,” Logan said the moment one drew close.

Things happened quickly after that. Roman was being helped to his feet, lumbering up stiff and slow and aching. They were ushered along, past the cordon line to joined the other walking wounded at the makeshift triage area. Virgil was given a cursory exam and a red tag, Patton a yellow, and Roman a green.

“Please do not touch me,” Logan told the harried EMT when it was his turn, “I have autism and I am currently experiencing sensory overload. I will sign a waiver if necessary.”

And of course it was necessary...the wonders of bureaucracy. Paperwork complete, Logan stepped aside. There was a painful tightness in his chest and the burgeoning migraine was sure to be epic, but he felt confident that he was not in need of immediate treatment. Or at least not of the medical variety.

And then the EMT saw Deceit.

Suddenly, panic. The man was shouting over his shoulder. Waving his hands in the air, doing everything he could to attract attention. Two paramedics separated from the congregation and hurried over. Deceit reared back in confusion when they rushed him, then gave a great, rasping laugh of realization.

“Fucking **really**?”

Logan could not quite make out all that followed, but it looked to involve a liberal amount of cursing. Deceit's expression was that of a man quite thoroughly **done**.

It wasn't until Deceit gestured to his own face, vehement and disgusted, that Logan understand. Ah. Given the circumstances he thought it an understandable mistake. Exertion had flushed the man's scars vivid and he was bleeding from the corner of his eye, a thick rivulet that smeared crimson when Deceit scrubbed his palm viciously against the socket. Logan stepped closer, leaning in to confirm it was not the eye itself that was damaged. A minor tear of the eyelid, as suspected. Still, certainly at first glance it would have been easy to think the burns had been freshly inflicted. 

Deceit was clearly not in a forgiving mood. He planted his hand in the middle of Logan's chest and shoved him back, hissing his displeasure at being crowded. He still wore the curved fangs of a viper, and it might have been threatening if the man had not looked so terribly tired. 

(...touch don't touch please touch don't...) 

Point made, Deceit pointed at Virgil with a stab of his thumb. “ **Him** .” 

Logan felt the command more then he heard it, a deep rumble of resonance that rattled his ribs and sent the paramedics scuttling over to Roman and the little he carried. 

It left Logan the only one to see Deceit stagger, a quick stumble step to the side, face washing ashen under the mosaic of ruined make-up and long-healed burns. 

“Okay?” he asked, an echo of Patton. 

The response made him wrinkle his nose. Really now. That was just uncalled for.

Logan turned away from Deceit's viciously upthrust finger. Hesitated, then gently tugged free one of his plugs. He needed to hear what the paramedics had to say.

A rush of noise. Background babble, the siren of an arriving firetrucks, someone wailing high and constant. But not, perhaps, as bad as Logan had expected. This was tolerable.

He **would** tolerate it.

(It wasn't. It was more on top of more on top of more, and this wasn't Logan overcoming his limits. This was Logan pretending, Logan denying, and he knew it would come due. Knew he didn't have much longer before the figurative shit hit the proverbial fan.)

A few well-placed snips from the paramedics' scissors and they were able to pull Virgil loose. The little whined (more of a gurgle, clogging tight with fluid) and tried to squirm away from the strangers intent on taking his pulse.

“Hush, honey...” Patton's own voice was a ruin, smeared down to a gravely slur. “No one's gonna hurt you. Lemon breezy, 'member?”

Roman was groaning, arching his back in slow, careful stages, legs spread wide to keep himself upright. “Oh...oh, hell. Yeah, tomorrow is **not** going to be fun.”

The taller of the paramedics looped her stethoscope back around her neck and spoke to her partner in low, urgent tones. Much of the medical jargon was beyond Logan. Anatomy had never been one of his interests, though he thought caught the gist of it. ( _Gist_. An interesting word. Short and snappy, with a bitter but not unpleasant crunch.)

(Grist for the mill, he thought nonsensically.)

Virgil was not doing well.

“We need to transport him now,” the woman said, confirming Logan's suspicion, “His caregiver can come, but the rest of you will need to meet us at the hospital.” A glance back to where Patton was cuddling Virgil tight and cooing in his ear. “I'm guessing that would be you.”

“Can I?” Patton said. Asking permission not from the paramedics but from the others who had been at Virgil's side from the start.

“Of course you can, Patty-heart,” Roman answered.

It made sense. Patton, a caregiver- even if he was not **Virgil's** caregiver. Patton, a nurse. Patton, who the little seemed to trust, however tentatively. An entirely logical choice.

“It should be Deceit,” Logan said.

The other three followed his gaze, turning to look at the man. Deceit froze. Mid-step, caught in the act of retreat. Logan had been watching him drift away from their huddle, careful and slow, edging back to mingle with the crowd.

“Next to Virgil, he is most in need of medical attention.”

“You're hurt?” Patton's yelp had Virgil cringing. “Shhh...sorry, sweetheart.” He pulled the little closer, rubbing his back and resting his chin on the mop of tangled dark hair. “Deceit, why didn't you say something?”

“His arm is broken,” Logan provided when the man seemed disinclined to answer. The look Deceit gave him promised retribution in the very near future. Logan shrugged, unrepentant. “He...”

For a man with one functioning eye Deceit had a truly impressive glare. “I **fell**. Didn't even make it out of my room...slipped in the bathroom when the alarm went off and bashed myself against the tub.” 

He spoke slowly. Deliberately. Staring Logan down all the while, and even then Logan didn't understand at first. Why...?

Until Deceit tipped his chin at Patton. Patton...weeping, mumbling apologies, wallowing in his guilt. All because he had been hurting too badly himself to notice Deceit's injury, and how much worse would it be if he knew?

And suddenly a flash of memory. Patton, staring up at the burning hotel. Patton turning around, walking back. Deceit shaking him, telling him they needed him, telling him to **stay**.

With the memory a terrible realization. Patton had meant to go back through the door. To climb back up those stairs. He had looked into the flames and thought only of those still left in the building. Pushed by his class toward self-destruction. And Logan...

...trapped in his head, drifting among the stars...

Logan would have **let** him.

Logan took a deep, steadying breath. Filled his lungs with cold, clean air. “You'll need to stay with Virgil until the rest of us arrive,” he told Deceit, “We will be there as soon as we are able.”

Funny, how he had taken it as a given that they meant to reunite and see out the night together. Logan glanced at the other two to be sure and was reassured when they both nodded, immediate and firm. No question, no hesitation.

Were they friends? It was a novel concept. Logan did not make friends easily, and theirs had been an alliance born of necessity. He could scarcely say he knew them. Perhaps friendship was too strong a word for it.

Acquaintances. Yes, that felt more fitting.

( _Acquaintances_. Underripe honeydew and sage.)

But still...it felt like there was room there. Room to grow, to build. What little he **did** know intrigued him. It was part of the reason he was pushing for Deceit to accompany Virgil. A way to keep him with them, even if the man himself desired otherwise. Their bond had been induced by trauma, but that did not make it feel any less **real.** Logan found that he was loathe to see it severed so soon. They had been, for however short a time, a team, and an effective one at that.

Logan had never been a part of a team before.

“It should be Rose,” Deceit was arguing. A pity. He seemed an intelligent man, and should have sense enough to know when he was beaten.

“Virgil does not have time for this,” Logan reminded.

Manipulative, but one used the tools available. Deceit grumbled, but came trudging back. Even submitted to a quick exam, flashing his costume fangs when the raw skin around his eye was gently prodded. For all his posturing he was quick to take Virgil's hand when the little whimpered at being transferred onto a nearby stretcher.

“Oh,” one of the paramedics said, “Let me just...”

“ **Don't**!

The paramedic froze. Let his arm fall back slowly, staring wide-eyed at the men around him. Four cries of warning, blending together into a chorus of dismay.

Roman huffed in relief. “For the love of Jonathan Larson...” he said, “Don't touch the block.”

Logan lowered his own outstretched arm back to his side with a shaky sigh. That had been too close.

“He may react violently,” he explained, “He is rather attached to it.”

Figuratively and literally.

It was a terrible thing, watching the little wriggle and whine when they strapped him in for the journey. He was weakened enough to put up only a token fight, a distracted, feeble failing like a man drowning. “You're not alone,” Patton assured him, “We'll see you soon, kiddo.”

“Be quick,” Deceit warned them all, “I have other things to do tonight then babysit.”

Then they were moving, threading their way toward the bank of waiting ambulances. Logan saw one of the paramedics turn to the cosplayer just before they vanished into the crowd.

“...your name is Deceit?”

Deceit groaned, and they were gone.

Patton was craning his neck. Standing tiptoe, trying to keep Virgil in sight for as long as possible. Every line of his body strained forward, wanting so, so badly to follow. He sobbed when Roman touched his shoulder, spinning to hide his face against the other man's chest.

“I'm sorry,” Logan said.

Patton shook his head, smearing snot and tears across Roman's shirt. “No,” he said, muffled, “It was the right call. M' being silly.”

Roman just hummed. Rocking him, and they both startled badly when the triage nurse cleared his throat.

“I need you folks to move along,” he said, not unkindly, “The waiting zone for yellow tags is over there. Flag someone down right away if his breathing gets worse.”

They made their way over, Patton limping crooked, Roman grimacing heavy with every step. Patton was reexamined and outfitted with an oxygen mask and a shock blanket. Logan took the opportunity to look around. There was perhaps a dozen other victims awaiting treatment. Respiratory distress was a common theme. The rest...blood and bruises, but no burns, and that seemed a positive sign. Hopefully it meant the fire had been contained to the upper floors of the hotel.

“Patton, they will likely take you soon.” Logan was grateful for his own blanket, though he disliked the crinkly feel of it. “Roman and I will need to arrange for our own transport. Roman, would your...peeps...be able to assist?”

Roman's eyes shot wide. He bolted up from his chair...or tried, blanching white and sinking back down with a breathy curse. “Remy. Oh, shit, he's going to kill me.”

Rummaging through his jeans and jacket, emptying them of receipts, coins, hair ties, the flotsam and jetsam of life scattering unnoticed between his feet Until finally he gave a small cheer and pulled free his cellphone from a pocket he had already searched twice over. His triumph lasted only until he flicked it on and saw the notifications clustered on the screens.

“Fifty-four missed calls. Fuck. He's going to **slaughter** me.”

Patton frowned at the curse, but gave his shoulder a little pat of comfort. “Don't be silly. I'm sure he'll just be glad you're okay.”

(Pat-the-Peacock, Logan thought, and cringed.)

“Except I'm not, because he's going to kill me. Slowly. Very, very slowly,” Roman sighed, more dramatic now then he'd been in the midst of a bonafide emergency. “I'll never be allowed out without an escort again.”

He took a breath- for courage, one presumed- and tapped the screen.

“Hey, Remstar. So, a funny thing happened on the way to the con...”

Logan tuned out the rest of the conversation and Roman's rather pathetic begging. Patton giggled at the actor's misery, finishing with a cough that made him shudder.

“Can you go see about the paperwork?” he asked Logan, “That way we'll be all set to go.”

Paperwork?

“Patton, you can't...”

Patton's mouth pulled thin, resolute. “I can,” he said, “And I am.”

There was steel in the little nurse. Unflinching, chin held high, daring Logan to argue. A flash fire temper, and then he was sighing, sagging in on himself and blinking teary-eyed.

“...I just don't want to be alone.”

And that was that. Ten minutes and a half dozen signatures later, and they were free to limp away. Around the corner and down three blocks, dodging the ravenous reporters lying in wait (Roman with his beanie pulled low and scarf pulled high, and all the more conspicuous because of it.) A short little walk, the closest Remy had been able to bring the car with the traffic and blockades. An eternal slog through fast-falling snow and bitter winds.

It took them an hour to manage it. By the end of it Patton was hobbling, dragging his left leg and shuffling the right. Roman wasn't much better off, grunting with every plodding step. Logan's own legs and feet were a misery, and no, tomorrow was not going to be fun for any of them.

Remy greeted Roman with a hug and a punch. He was a vibrant man, to say the least, with a flair for creative insults. Logan could not have been more disinterested. He had expected an limousine or something equally grotesque, but the rental was a perfectly modest sedan. Logan took the backseat with Patton, leaving a thoroughly cowed Roman to slink his way around to the passenger side.

“Hang on, bitches.” Remy spun the wheel, and in any other circumstances Logan would have white-knuckled his way through the ride. Apparently Roman's handler chose not to acknowledge silly things like right of way or lanes.

Safe. They were safe (relatively speaking, at least.)

It was quiet (if one ignored the bickering in the front.) They were safe and it was quiet and Logan hummed, high and frantic and relieved.

“Lo?” Patton asked, “You okay?”

Logan shook his head. “Please excuse me,” he said, “I'm going to have a meltdown now.”

Logan dropped his head to his knees.  Clenched his fists.

And finally, finally, let himself scream.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter- in which Virgil has some choices to make


End file.
